July 23, 2025 • 48 mins
Talking Points Memo’s Josh Marshall examines how Trump’s second administration is failing.
Congressman Robert Garcia details Congress being sent home to prevent the Epstein files from being released.
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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 the Congressional Budget Office says the
BBB will add a whopping three point four trillion dollars
to the national deficit over the next decade. It will
also knock millions of Americans off Medicaid. We have such
(00:24):
a great show for you today, talking Points memos own
Josh Marshall comes to talk to us about how Trump's
second administration is flailing. Then we will talk to Congressman
Robert Garcia about Congress getting sent home to protect Trump
(00:46):
from the Epstein files being released.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
But first the news, Molly, you know what we got
to not do talk about Epstein because then mister Trump's
could be very mad. So what is he doing in
that case? He's saying lots of crazy shit, posting AI
about resting Obama and the fact is he's doing this
all for destruction because my man is up in those
(01:09):
Epstein files.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Yeah. So again we don't know what exactly. It just
seems like Trump is worried about something, so worried that
Mike Johnson has no sent Congress home for six weeks, okay,
all of August, two weeks in July, because Democrats did
(01:31):
smartly push his hand, and if Congress stays in DC
and continues voting on things, eventually Republicans will have to
vote against releasing the Epstein files, which puts them in
the intersection of both their conspiracy loving base, right, the
conspiracy loving base that desperately wants to know the truth
(01:53):
and Donald Trump, who desperately wants to not somehow release
these Epstein files. I'm not sure why that would be.
So he sent everybody home, and Trump is now going
to just do anything he can to distract from this story,
which continues to add momentum as it goes on. Again.
You'll remember last week the Wall Street Journal reported on
(02:15):
this salacious birthday note which had a drawing. And again
this has just been from the Wall Street Journal, but
we have seen other drawings that Trump has done that
look like this, which you'll note that Trump had actually
said that he doesn't draw pictures, but in fact, there's
a bunch of pictures he's drawn. And you'll say, you know,
Trump will say there's no, yeah, no relationship with Epstein.
(02:37):
But in two thousand and two he told New York
Magazine that jeff and him both love beautiful women, though
jeffree liked them on the younger side.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, and there's tape of Jeffrey Epstein saying they were
best friends for ten years. So I always go back
to it.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Really, there's tape of that.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I always go back to that.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Yes, have you heard that tape? Trump is going on
the offensive against his political enemies. He's gone from pumping
conspiracy theories and trying to get his base excited about them,
to worried about conspiracy theories and trying to get his
base to forget about them. It's a pretty quick pivot.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
So while we're on the subject of people who obey
mister Trump no matter what he says or does, we
then get to one Lena Habba, who has now been
replaced as top New Jersey prosecutor by judges until she
gets Senate confirmation.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Elena Habba, you will remember from season one. She was
a fixture at Marlongo. She had a really quite attractive
wore a lot of very attractive clothing, danced around a
very attractive way. Became Trump's lawyer. She had Originally she
was known for her work in traffic Court became Trump's lawyer,
(03:54):
actually made a lot of mistakes with the cases that
she handled for Trump. And that's why, by the way,
it's important to remember when you get despairing about the
moment that American democracy is in, and Jesse and I
really do get despairing. And in fact, I think today
the vibes have been not immaculate. The two of us
have really been down. It's important to remember that this
(04:16):
administration filled with parking lawyers. Okay, these are not their best, okay,
And remember even when we've had administrations filled with the
best and the brightest, and looking at you, Brock Obama,
it's still very hard. Government is very hard, okay, So
getting things done is hard, Serving people is hard. It's
(04:37):
all hard. So I just want to say, like, as
scary as this is, these people are fucking morons. And
by the way, I just want to say, the US
Code stipulates that interim US attorneys are only allowed to
serve for one hundred and twenty days if they're not
confirmed by the Senate or extended by the just re Court.
So we know the houses out, so let's see what happens.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yes, so Trump is pulling us out of the UN
organization UNSCO aka the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
Sounds right for a bunch of philistines. Anyway, what do
you see here, Molly.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
So find someone who likes being mean to you the
way Donald Trump likes being mean to the UN. He
really along with public radio. Donald Trump really hates the UN.
Interesting that he hates the UN so much, but something
to think about. So Tammy Bruce, you may remember her
from being on right wing television. She now is a
(05:39):
spokesman for Trump's I think she's a spokesman for the
State Department, part of the Trump Imperial Organization slash presidency.
They did a ninety day look at UNESCO. They decided
that they were going to pull out of it. They
had pulled out of it once before in Trump's first term,
(05:59):
or as I like to think of it, first season.
They pulled out of it for they said they were
looking for anti Semitism or you know whatever, excessive wokeness,
whatever the bullshit phrase the use. This time, they pulled
out because Palestine is in the organization, That's why. And
they felt that that was anti Semitic or anti Israel bias.
(06:22):
It showed an anti Israel bias, okay, and these people.
Trump also ordered withdraws from international organizations such as the
World Health Organization and the UN Human Rights Council. I mean, honestly,
it's hard for me to imagine Trump staying in the
Human Rights Council. Let's be out here like that. Seems
like you go together like a horse carriage Trump Rights.
(06:46):
I mean, if he's going to stay at it, he's
going to stay in it for the iron A and
the Yungs.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
So the guy who built Alligator Alcatraz is probably going
to leave the UN Human Rights Counsel.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
Yeah So.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
In an interesting new Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, a
man who, let's just say is nightmare fuel of some
of the things he's been involved with, He's seeking a
meeting with Jeffrey Epstein's associate, just Lenn Maxwell.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Why is Todd Lanch doing this? Why? Why is Todd
Flanch wants to meet with Jeffrey Epstein's associate, just Len Maxwell.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Why why is Pam Bondy not doing it? Because everybody's
been making some accusations around there. I mean, I wonder
the bind Reels.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Why why would he want to talk to just Len look,
her lawyer has already said something to the effect of
like Donald Trump is awesome and he will protect my car.
You know, he said something like we look forward to
meeting with them. Trump is very involved in pardoning people.
He loves to pardon people, especially wealthy people. Maybe he
(07:52):
won't pardon her, but certainly does feel like that's what
she's looking for. We'll say, stay to the death of democracy.
What will happen next week? We all wait with baited breath.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Well, you're talking as if people who are in power
sometimes cozy up to mister Trump and get pardons, another
unfair treatment.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
That both know. That's very silly. That never happens except
all the time. Josh Marshall is the editor of Talking
Points memo Welcome Back, Too Fast Politics. Josh Marshall, thanks
for having me. It was the best of times, it
(08:36):
was the worst of it, just the worst of times.
Speaker 5 (08:39):
I think, yeah, it's not great, it's it's it's not
a great time for America. I think you have to
think you can state that kind of categorically.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
I wonder, like, I know when you leave the country.
I haven't left the country in like a year since
this presidency started, but I don't doubt that everyone in
all those other countries is pretty horrified by what's going
on here. So I want to start with Congress has
been is being sent home for about a month and
(09:11):
a half because Mike Johnson cannot figure out another way
to get them not to legislate on releasing the Epstein files.
Speaker 5 (09:21):
Yeah, there was this buzz or vibe in the DC
news sheets over the weekend that paradoxically the Journal story
had sort of, you know, flipped the dynamics of this story,
and Trump has his people behind him again and kind
of we're moving on and everything. I was dubious of that,
but I you know, I couldn't be sure. But this
(09:42):
basically shutting down the house and sending everybody home, I
think tells the story. So does the stuff about releasing
these Martin Luther King files. And now Pam Bond He's
going to meet with Glaine Julane and never I've never
known quite how to pronounce her name. Maxwell tastical or
nature stories. They testify against themselves so endlessly on this,
(10:03):
I mean, they keep coming up with these new things
and new diversions.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Yeah, we're like minutes from there are UFOs. I think
is the net net a bit is eventually the White
House will be like, we want to tell you the
truth about the UFOs.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Epstein, at Roswell.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Epstein, at Roswell, the ten people who still do what
we do. By the way, it's like from twenty sixteen
to now, it's like they're literally used to be that,
Like eleven people would write the opinion piece. Now there's
like one person.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
I guess that's right.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
We run after these news cycles and it's just like one.
I mean, it's so so so dark. I mean, it's
such a stocking turn of events to have nobody around.
But I wonder if you could talk to us about
why you think like he's definitely throwing everything against the wall,
all the culture war stuff, everything like that. It seems
(10:57):
like the grand jury testimony which will not show that much,
which is why clearly they've decided because it has all redacted, victims,
tams redacted, likely some of the perpetrators or all of
the perpetrator's names redacted. Like that seems like a very
smart way to give something that's nothing, But we know
there are hundreds of pages of information there.
Speaker 5 (11:21):
It's clever in a way, but you know, I don't
think it's enough to really change the dynamics. I mean,
no one, there's no one ever been saying release the
grand jury testimony, we need to see the Epstein grand
Like that's never been anything anybody has said. Also, to
the best of my knowledge, it's not something. I don't
(11:43):
think anybody thinks there's anything really even in those And
they've also stipulated that Pambondi will decide what's relevant and
what's not. So the whole thing is stupid, and I
think it'll, like a lot of these things, I think
it'll have a half life of like a day.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Right to silence the crit But it's interesting, Like so
when we talk about like the difference between twenty sixteen
and now, because that's something I spent a lot of
time THEMA. And in twenty sixteen, you know, Trump would
fire people, right, He'd say, remember Mattow had this huge
wall of people he had fired, and be like this
one and that one. You know, to be right, hundreds
(12:19):
of people in the wall. There is no wall, right,
he just keeps everyone. I don't know what's happening in
his head, but it certainly seems like the thinking is
if you fire people, you get more leaking, whereas if
you just move everyone around, they still have skin in
the game. Do you think that's what it is, or
do you think there's some even more intrepid reason for
why he's not firing people.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
That's a good question. I hadn't thought of that.
Speaker 5 (12:42):
I think the biggest reason is that he has pre
selected everybody. He hadn't really thought of being president the
first time, and so he had to kind of pull
it together with people who were around, and most of
those people were themselves pretty slimy, but thought he was
nitty and had other dependencies and everything. So almost all
(13:03):
those people had their own agendas and thought he was
a fool, and some of them were from the sort
of the Republican old regime, so he had a lot
of reason to fire people the first time. So I
think that's the biggest reason. But everybody is pre selected.
I mean everybody, Cash Bettel has been you know, he
had that little like you know, cash with the dollar
sign that. I mean, they've all been in part of
(13:25):
Trump Incorporated for like eight years, so they're all in there.
They're all sort of made men and made women in
the organization.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
So that's that's the big reason.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
But Also, I think what you say is right, the
kind of like you know, like with you know, the
congressman from Florida who was head of the NSC for
what like three months or something like that.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Mike Walls.
Speaker 5 (13:44):
Yeah, just give them a little other job and keep
them on the line.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
I think.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
So. I think it's both.
Speaker 5 (13:49):
There are lower level people who've gotten fired, but none
of the people in sort of you know, kind of
really Trump adjacent have been fired.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
I think you're right. I hadn't given that a lot
of thought, But I think it's both those things.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Yeah, it's pretty wild when I think about where we
are at this moment in Trump is. In twenty sixteen,
I had fears that were absolutely rational, fears right about
what would happen to institutions, And what happened instead was
that institutions held and that the Magabase did not get
(14:21):
everything they wanted. But Trump got a lot of stuff,
but he didn't get everything he wanted. Now twenty twenty four,
there are no institutions that are holding. Everybody is caving right.
People are bending over backwards to cave to him right
from the do not obey an advanced guy who lives
in Canada now right, like that guy doesn't even live here,
(14:42):
Like the billionaires are just like we got to make deals.
You know, everybody in the world is caving to Trump.
So it's interesting and instructive to me. I actually think
that what took down Trump the last time, the thing
that was Trump's great sort of foil was ultimately his
(15:03):
own incompetence, which is sort of the top line of
the story we're looking at right now.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
I think that is true.
Speaker 5 (15:10):
I mean, you know, one thing that occurs to me
in what you just said is that, like you talked about,
you know, getting what he wanted. But I have a
slight twist on this, and that is that it took
Trump's whole first term to actually find out what it
was he wanted because basically Trump ran for president with
no idea what he wanted. He thought, you run for president,
(15:34):
If I win, it will be the law that everyone
in the country has to love me.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
That was basically the proposition.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Right, that's right, That's what he thought the president.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
And then he gets elected, and over the course of
the interregnum between the presidencies, the transition, suddenly he is
getting it from all sides. He's being accused of things
I mean stuff he did, but still that doesn't change
it from Trump's perspective. So well, Trump's whole arc over
the last eight years is this experience of winning the
(16:06):
legal right to have everybody in the country love him,
but having them renege on that obligation and getting mad
and wanting to use the presidency to get back at
the people who did him wrong, who did the Russia investigation,
who made COVID, who made him sad about COVID. So
(16:27):
it's not just you know, people have the sense, well,
he only kind of learned how to use the levers
by the second term, and that's kind of true, But
it was actually also only that he figured out what
he wanted to do right by the end of the
first term. So both of those things are kind of operative.
I know I skipped your original question. That is the
(16:49):
thing that occurs to me.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
It's yeah, at this phase in American democracy, no one
expects anyone to answer a question. Ever, so as long
as you just talk for a few minutes, good enough.
I can't remember what I asked you.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
I can't remember either.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
It wasn't very obviously was not very good.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
It was a subset of my answer was a subset
of it.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Yeah, middle aged, we are here, and it is a problem.
It takes everything I have to not start spiraling into
how do we get out of this thing? And also
I am not convinced like and again, my biggest failing
as a pundit, among other things, the fact that I
can't pronounce people's names. And there are any number of
(17:29):
other failings I have, but one of the ones that
I have is I'm a little bit optimistic. So I
but I'm a little bit optimistic, even though it's a
fucking disaster, right, Like, there is no Muller, there is
no figure on the horizon coming in with papers that
need to be explained. There's none of that. But I
(17:49):
still feel like people hate what Trump is doing. It's
not popular. Trump administration is being held together with scotch tape. Right.
I saw Tom Holman that had Vice today on Morning Joe.
He would look like he was crying, right, I mean,
the guy looked like he did not look good, and
he was like, it's just because you guys are so
mean to us. That's why we have to wear the masks.
(18:11):
And I'm just not sure that you can end this
experiment of American democracy with the dumbest people on the
planet discuss well.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
I think two things.
Speaker 5 (18:21):
One is I think I wrote a post maybe eight
weeks or so into the administration that I thought he
had already lost his effort. And I still think that.
And that doesn't mean that things will not get a
lot worse. I think they will get.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
A lot worse.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
I think that.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
He did things.
Speaker 5 (18:38):
Basically, if you want to sort of impose an autocracy, there's.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Basic things you do and don't do.
Speaker 5 (18:46):
And one thing is you keep the you know what
they in Russia they call the power ministries, the you know,
the domestic police, the army. You keep all of them
on side, You keep the pensioners on side. You juice
the economy. He didn't do those things. He actually antagonized
a lot of key segments of the population, and he
(19:07):
scared a lot of people. First, he scared them with
driving the economy into the ditch, or at least scaring
people that he was in the process of doing that.
He has done that again with this kind of very
performative and also real secret policy stuff. I don't think
you can transform a country like the United States into
an autocracy against sizeable public opposition. Fifty fifty is doable
(19:34):
because if you have the power of the state and
like close to half the people, but he doesn't. He's
really driving huge amounts of opposition. And again I'm not
pollyannish about this. I think this will get much darker,
but I share the basic optimism that what he's doing
is really unpopular and we see that very clearly in
lots of ways, and I think that is fundamentally this
(19:59):
struggle that Trump has imposed on the country is at
the end of the day, fundamentally about public opinion, and
I think he is losing that battle.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Correct. Now, I'm going to add something that is going
to get people upset, but is absolutely right. The base
is fucking furious with Democrat. They are so angry. I
know this because I was on this is my this
is my real people talk. I was on a book tour,
and during my book tour, I would have these events
and people come up to me and they'd be like,
(20:29):
fuck this one, fuck that one. We're unhappy with this,
We're unhappy that. And you know, I'm listening to people
and I'm thinking it's not wrong, Like, it's not wrong.
And here's my question for you, the BBB, So now
Mike Johnson, who's basically men me. Trump has sent everyone
home because he doesn't know how they're going to vote.
So here's my question. Obviously, the Epstein stuff puts a
(20:52):
wrinkle in everything, But I just wonder could Democrats have
somehow engineered a scenario like this before the BBB passed
or do you think that Epstein wrinkle is just such
a seismic change that you could not have done it
any other way.
Speaker 5 (21:07):
There is nothing with the power of the Epstein thing,
specifically about Trump, right, And I think that to a
great extent, even a lot of us didn't know he
was so vulnerable to it.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
Until he told us, right he started.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Doing all these things.
Speaker 5 (21:23):
So I think this Epstein cudgel was not available at
the time.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
A That's part of it.
Speaker 5 (21:30):
The other part of it is that the way that
the budget reconciliation process works is that there are a
lot of privileged resolutions and things like privileged resolutions where
and again I don't know how it exactly lines up
in this case, but there's a lot of things about
the about the reconciliation process, and that's why you can't
(21:52):
filibuster that basically says no, no funny business. You can't
you know, you can't slip in other things that needed
to be voted on. You sort of get the rails
for what you're trying to do. So for both of
those reasons, I don't think this was available. Again the
other part, I don't know all the technicalities, but that's
a big feature of the reconciliation process. Having said that,
(22:12):
there is definitely a sense, and I think we've seen
this in various fronts over the last six months, that
most Democrats are still in the mode of, you know,
you don't want to shut the place down, you don't
want to throw the place into chaos, you want to
get business done, and they're I mean, back in March
(22:34):
the continuing resolution thing was a classic example of that.
And I think elected Democrats are finally starting to shift
a bit from that because what we're hearing now is
at the end of the summer, when they have yet
another one of these, you know they're going to need
another one of these stop gaps. Yeah, yeah, that in
the Senate, they're just going to say no. And I
(22:55):
think that's two reasons. One is that they are also
hearing from the people you've heard from on the book tour,
who are furious, furious, furious, furious. And what has also
been a breaking point for some of those people themselves
is they've just passed this budget, which obviously Democrats don't like.
Even if they didn't maybe you know, fight enough, fight
(23:16):
hard enough against it for some people's taste. But now
they're just going back and undoing parts of the budget
that they prompt you know, So the budget, Yeah, the
budget's meetingless because you just say which parts will we
either do a recision or which parts will.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
Just break the law?
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Right?
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Why even have it?
Speaker 5 (23:31):
All of those things are kind of happening, And to
a certain extent, I always have I always try to
balance these things and how I talk about them with people.
To a certain extent, when the other side has a trifecta,
there's not a lot you can do, especially on budgets
where you have reconciliation and no filibuster. That is hard
for people to accept, right that at the end of
the day, they have the votes. That's it. Having said that, though,
(23:55):
you can make more noise, and I do think you
got some sense of that in the final days where
the BBB was kind of moving towards passage, where a
bunch of prominent Democrats were all over social media the
fine details about rural hospitals, about medicaid, about all this
kind of stuff. We're at least making as much noise
(24:15):
as they could and sort of providing the public with
information about how, you know, upset they should be, but
you know, so it's a little of both. There is
a sense in which it is hard for people to
accept that when you don't have the votes, you don't
have the votes. But there are lots of times and
what sort of set the tone was what happened in March.
People are right to be upset. People are really right
(24:38):
to be upset about elected democrats not being It's not
just not fighting hard enough. It's not fighting hard enough.
It's not being creative enough in how you fight and
fighting on every battle. I mean, this is the part
about about being out of power. You don't you have
a lot of time on your hands, Like what else
are you gonna do? Right, You've got to like, Okay,
(24:59):
you're gonna send more letters to your constituents or whatever,
but fighting on every battle. And that's what I hope,
at least is when the president's standing is approaching forty
sixty you know, levels of opposition, the opposition party should
be really willing to kind of let their freak flag fly, right,
(25:20):
because if sixty percent of the public is opposing the president,
you should be able to as an opposition party, you
should be able to think, like, fuck, I could do
anything and it'll be okay because everybody hates this guy.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Yeah, Josh Marshall, will you come back?
Speaker 3 (25:35):
I will come back.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Congressman Robert Garcia represents California's forty second district and is
the ranking member of Oversight. Welcome too fast Politics. Congressman
Robert Garcia, Hello, I so you're about to be sent
home for a very very long recess.
Speaker 4 (26:00):
Why I mean, this is just so bizarre. I mean, basically,
Mike Johnson and Republicans have decided that because they don't
want to talk about Jeffrey Epstein and they don't want
to force their members to take votes against their King,
Donald Trump, that they're going to send everybody home. They
would rather discard working on lowering costs or trying to
(26:22):
expand health. They don't care about any of those things.
Now they've they've shifted their attention back to protecting Donald
Trump because he has Now you know, flipped this position
on releasing the Epstion files. So it is it is
like fucking insane. This is an insane week. They just
they are obsessed now with playing clean up duty for
(26:42):
Donald Trump.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Basically what's happened right now? Explain how to people who
do not serve in Congress and don't understand the nuances
of the situation, because Democrats actually did cause this, right,
they pushed and pushed and pushed on the Ebstein stuff,
which is also wildly popular and all their stituents want,
and that's how we got here. So explain to us
(27:04):
sort of the mechanism, because this is actually a win
for Minority Leader Jeffries right in a convoluted way. So explain.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
Yeah, So, I mean, take one sit back. So we
know that during the campaign, Donald Trump was obsessed with
releasing the Epstein file. So it became aga rallying cry
talked about all the time, you know the family, I
mean Donald Trump Junior tweeted about a dozens of times.
I mean, this has been center to the to their identity. Then,
of course, now he's in office and we get this reversal.
(27:36):
We know that Pambonni FBI DJ in turmoil. They're all
fighting because there's different opinions on what should be released,
what should be attracted. We now know that Donald Trump
is completely flipped of course his position, and so that
sets up essentially a series of votes that Democrats have
started forcing Republicans to take in subcommittees. We are supporting
(27:59):
of of this petition, which will force a large floor
vote of members. And because you know, Mike Johnson wants
to avoid these embarrassing votes, especially in the Rules Committee,
because the Rules Committee was essentially forcing these Republicans to
take votes Democrats saying release the files, Republicans saying, don't
(28:21):
release them. Mike Johnson decided it was better to then
basically cancel Congress than to have to have his members
continue to take votes on whether or not the Epstein
file should be released, whether we should be subpoena in people.
And that's kind of where where they have left it.
And so us I think by doubling down on essentially saying, hey,
(28:43):
you wanted this, you owe it to the American public.
Let's release these files. We don't did it, we don't
care who it impacts, We just want the truth out there.
Republicans are not running away scared. They can't confront you know,
they can't confront Donald Trump. They want to avoid him
at all costs. And now even they wanted to release
the files. They are now scared of Donald Trump and
(29:05):
are getting a lot of pressure from their base, as
they should be.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
But let's be honest here, Republicans weren't going to pass
any legislation anyway, right. They passed the one piece of
legislation they were going to pass before the midterms, a
bill that grows the deaficit three and a half trillion
dollars but manages And we got the official CBO score
this week, which was like, it's three and a half
billion dollars, doesn't matter what you say. And they wanted
(29:31):
to do this weird stuff cut a state tax cut,
I mean in taxes for very wealthy people. And then also,
I mean, there was nothing they were ever going to
do except you know, there was a recision package that
basically took money away from public radio. So I wonder
if you could talk about sort of like there is
(29:51):
on the horizon this insane healthcare premium situation which is
about to come up, and can you explain that to
us and talk about where we are with that.
Speaker 4 (30:02):
What we do know is, regardless of kind of Republicans'
efforts to try to hide away what was actually this
horrific build and just passed, we have real serious challenges
with the healthcare system, absurance. We have real serious challenges
with how we have to fund the government. We have
challenges right now where what we're not talking about is
the fact that Republicans can't figure out how to actually
(30:22):
appropriate money to keep the government going. I mean, there
are real serious challenges that we actually could be dealing
that are noncesarily even in the form of bills, and
we can be talking about those opportunities and challenges this week.
But the House is completely at a standstill and frozen
because of this damn Jeffrey Epstein skin all that Trump
(30:42):
is basically creating and blowing up.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Right, there's the reason why he's plowing it out.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
Look, here's the bottom line. Donald Trump is in the
Epstein files. We already know that that's publicly been repented.
He said, we're you know, we both like be to
for women. Jeffrey on the younger side, they've been and
they said they were best buddies for ten fifteen years.
I mean, this is both of them have actually said this,
and you know, this last move of trying to get
(31:12):
to Laye Maxwell to actually now you know, to come
testify in subpoena. This is fine, which we support. She
also wants a pardon from Trump and so now he's
trying to work her to get her to say what
he wants her to say. And so while all of
this is happening, we have real problems. I mean, the
health insurance market is in real disarray right now. We
(31:33):
people are going to start and we're are already seeing
it having to pay more for health care. We're having
coalitions of folks that are buying these rates for companies
and nonprofits are seeing rates go up and all and
a lot a lot of that has to deal with
the fact that people know these cuts are now going
to be in the pipeline, and so the health care
(31:53):
industry isn't turnboil. There isn't anyone in healthcare, on the
insurance side, on the hospital side, the provider's side that
doesn't think that the Medicaid cuts and the upcoming kind
of disruption of healthcare isn't going to make health care
worse for everybody else. So if you already have health care.
Your not going to improve, We're gonna actually have less
people covered right fill up and it's a real crisis.
(32:16):
And Trump is not interested in any event except for
giving billionaires big tax breaks.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Well, in Trump's defense, that's why they put him there.
I wonder if you could you have become ranking on oversight.
This was a harder fought battle of sort of wrestling
power out in the hands of the older generation. This
is the second time this has happened because the first
person they put as the ranking member of oversight died.
(32:45):
Talk to me about how this went down and how
you did it, and also just I'm sure was inter
party squabbling is always pretty tough, So talk to us
about it.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
Yeah, I mean to take what sit back. Like when
Alex Alexandria uh Costure Cartez when she ran for for Rinker,
I was one of the first ones to come out.
I supported her. I was actually there's a nomination process
where you actually get three nominators to nominate U inifront
of the caucus before the big vote, I was winning
for three nominators. I kind of went all in. They
really believed that she was the right person. We needed
(33:21):
a generational change. I thought she had the right message,
and so when she was unsuccessful, actually didn't win the election,
it was hard for a lot of us and there
a lot of us in the caucus felt when are
we going to actually bring in new voices? They basically
shut out from from the process, and so folks like myself,
Jasmine Crockett and Max Frost did a lot of us
(33:43):
really struggled. And so when this other, when this obviously
happened in the in the tragedy with with Jerry, I
think a lot of us would started talking again. We're like,
is this is this going to happen again? Are we
going to maybe at this moment, because when when when
alex Is a election happened and we and you fast
forward to this last one. A lot happened during that time,
(34:04):
and I think the country got even more upset and
people were more energized, and folks want to change even more.
And so that's when I think Jazz and myself in
particular made the decision like, let's get in this fight,
let's bring some change. Let's let's start talking to caucus members.
And I started talking to people across the caucus, and
it was clear to me that folks wanted some not
(34:26):
just generational change, but new voices. And so I, you know,
work my ass off talked to every person's caucus and Work,
you know, worked really hard to share like I have,
I have experience that they brought outside of Congress, and
and I'm grateful that the caucus went in this direction.
And I think you know, you know this, It's been
one hundred years since our caucus has elected a sophomore
(34:49):
to a leadership ranking member position. One hundred years. So
it was time for a change. And I hope that
we have opened the door and elections in the fut
for this continue to happen.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Yeah, this is not a great moment for Democrats, right.
People are super mad and they are mad at leadership.
The R and C has like about six times more
money than the Dncay, I mean, what do you think
is going on?
Speaker 4 (35:18):
One? People are mad. A lot of folks don't trust
people in politics in general. And I think that people
see that we were unable to close the deal and
winning the presidency of the Senate. We have a lot
of work to do, and I think people need to
understand that people view us as a coalition of folks
that have not stood up and fought for working people,
(35:39):
that we were out of touch, that it's to elite,
and I think all of those things, and there are
important lessons there. I think, look at what's happened in
New York, and I mean, so many people have been
talking about the mayor's race, and there's a lot of
opinions there, but you cannot argue with the fact that Zoron,
through simple messaging, a forward looking at and connecting with people,
(36:02):
made a real impact and hell yeah, thing was cleared.
And I think people you know that want to attribute
what happened there to or want to you know, oh, well,
you know, uh, I'm concerned about the fact that he's
the democratic socialist or his position on what's happening in
the Middle East, like that doesn't matter to the average
voter there. In fact, that here's someone that communicated what
(36:26):
that wanted three buses, universal childcare, wanted to freeze my
rent through and I think we have a lot of
lessons to learn from that campaign and from listening to
younger people on the ground, and I think that work
is starting. But I do not think that I'm not
one of those that thinks, oh, we're gonna win the
(36:47):
mid trus and that's a wrap.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Don't want that's.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
Look I mean to do.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
What I was impressed with with Zorin more than anything
was he got the ones and twos that the low
frequency voters, which had been Harris. And this is not
an indictment of Hairshi had one hundred days, but she
could not get even the fours and vibes out for her. Now,
I think there were a number of other mitigating factors
(37:12):
that had nothing to do with her. But really, I
think that when we see them, when we're looking at this,
really it's really something to think about now. So I
wonder what do you think about Like, we have a
lot of New Ork lawmakers. I'm thinking of a bunch
of people who refuse to endorse Mondani or who are
(37:36):
very negative about him, saying a lot of things that
certainly strike me as somewhat islamophobic. I've been sort of
shocked by the amount of pressure they have put on
you know, they are harder on Mondani than they are
on Trump. So can you make it make sense to me?
Because I'm like earnestly asking you this.
Speaker 4 (37:57):
Yeah, I think the two things. One is, look, people
are going to have their own people have their own
political perspectives and their own relationships New York. I'm not
a New Yorker, so like I get people their grace
to have their opinions my position. I've told this to
my New York friends and others. He is regardless of
what you thought about during the campaign, he is our nominee.
I'm a Democrat.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Yeah, a crack.
Speaker 4 (38:20):
He's a nominee and the party he should go all
in to support him. That's that's the second thing. And
I've told folks that maybe don't have a relationship with him. Look,
I want I had to spend time with him last
week here in DC. The guy is couldn't be kinder.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
I mean, wait, tell us, can you give us the
circumstances of how you got to spend time with him?
Tell us?
Speaker 4 (38:42):
So, Alexandria AOC brought him to d C for a
meeting openly, she invited the entire caucus anyone wanted to
come to meet with him, and about maybe about thirty
thirty five of us attended this gathering, and it was
a breakfast about him talking about how he thought we
(39:02):
should connect with kind of these our voters, and especially
how to reach working class people. That are not proffiliated
in politics.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Which should be the lesson from his victory, right, because
it's not working. Other people aren't winning that way.
Speaker 4 (39:16):
I mean, he was a master class in communication, in
political strategy. And the one thing I walked away with,
besides the fact that he's brilliant and I'd already been
communicating with his team and him before, was here's someone
who actually gives you a He he comes off because
he is a kind of person, right, And so the
more you put this person in front of voters are
(39:37):
more than gonna like him because he just looks he
comes off as really genuine. Yeah, And I think we
as a party have a lot to learn, not just
from that race, but why some people want candidates and
that stand on principle. They agree with you on every issue,
but they want somebody to stand on principle. And it
actually what you can believe they're actually looking out for
(39:57):
us when we're out here, is that you know, we
need be doing and taking on corruption in all four ms.
We need to be banning members of Congress for treating stocks,
We should be living becoming lobbyists. All these things are
popular with people. They view the system as has gained
against them and for the super wealthy, and so we
have a lot of work to do in that area.
(40:18):
And what people see in Zoron is just an average
guy that cares about the issues they care about, that
wants to help them afford their life a little better.
And I think Democrats, we got to do a better
job there. And that's a big lesson. I think that
a lot of us are taken in.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Did you see when he came and spoke, did people
have that, say, war members pushing back on him in
that same way that we've seen Jill brand you know,
I mean, did you see that kind of like no?
Speaker 4 (40:50):
Oh, well, the thirty five folks that ended the breakfast,
The reception was warm or excited. People were all talking,
sharing ideas. He was very well received with those that
were in attendance.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Right.
Speaker 4 (41:04):
I don't think it's a progressive conservative thing. It's people
want fighters who are going to stand up for the
working person and not cozy up to lobbyist billionaires and
big donors. And I think that that can appeal to anybody.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
So let's talk about you are the letter you guys
sent to Fox? You ranking member of an oversight oversights job,
I mean Congress. The Republicans in Congress aren't allowed to
do it because it would make their boss mad. But
the job is oversight. So tell us about this letter
you guys sent to Fox News.
Speaker 4 (41:37):
Yeah, I mean, and look, and the hypocrisy here is
so opt the charts, right, I mean, that's what I
just came. I can't understand in a nutshell. You know,
Fox and Friends, you know, average every viewership of you know,
one point seven million tons of people watch it, as
we know that show. They air an interview of which,
by the way, the irony is Pete Hegseth is one
of the interviewers on this interview. But the interview Donald
(41:58):
Trump and asking about releasing the EPT files, and he
basically responds and says, the first sentence he says is yes,
you know, we should probably release him. We should release him.
That one sentence gets clipped and is aired on the
program and then got it, and then immediately they go
to another question, another topic, and then that clip then
the Trump campaign takes and amplifies that one sentence and
(42:19):
it's everywhere release THEE file files. What we later find
out in that you know, the broader interview, he actually
answers that he goes there about a minute or a
minute response of where it's a much more nuanced response
about well, maybe there's some things in there that Easton
near not mine opitu. Well they didn't actually air that.
It was available later, but didn't air that. Now, in
(42:42):
a normal world, we know that that happens. Sometimes news
newscasts clip things and take things out of context. This
I think was much different. It was deliberate, it was
clearly we're trying to change the message. But why do
we highlighted it? Is because Trump just settled for sixteen
million dollars with CBS and Paramount for essentially accusing them.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
Of doing doing the very same thing that Fox News did.
Speaker 4 (43:07):
Right right, and so he gets you know, he gets
sixteen million bucks out of Paramount for basically the same
exact thing. And so we've been at We've asked pot
Fox a series of questions about the back and forth
about you know, what they knew and they communicate with
with the Trump team and where they directed to make
these cuts. And we've asked a series of questions of
(43:29):
Fox use we hope, we hope we get a response. Mean,
who knows now that Fox is being sued by Donald Trump.
Maybe they'll be more receptive to our inquiry. But we
wanted to just highlight the immense hypocrisy of Donald Trump here,
and also we wanted to highlight and we're now reviewing
where else did Donald Trump actually get his interviews edited
(43:50):
that we don't know about yet, saying that he should
be suing everyone. He can sue everybody, get settlements and
get money, but then do the exact same thing. I mean,
I so it's the hypocrisy that's insane. So hopefully we're
gonna get some more information for Fox in the weeks ahead.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
Can you explain to us oversight the job of oversay
right now? You don't Democrats don't control the House, so
you don't have the ability to set the schedule. You
still have some I mean, I feel like one of
the things that people are so angry about is they're like,
why can't Democrats do more? And there's a reason why, right,
(44:26):
so explain to us a little bit. I feel like
some of the problems here are that people just don't
totally understand how Congress works. I mean, almost no one does,
because we it's pretty much the fault of the media.
We don't cover it enough, but explain the.
Speaker 4 (44:40):
Big difference is so oversight of the committee is the
investigative branch of the Congress. Right, so this committee is
the committee that has the subpeda power that can launch
investigations for the Congress, that can if there's ever an impeachment,
it goes for this committee all sorts of immense power
in the investigation and transparency kind of arena, but that
(45:02):
those powers are in the sense of control of the majority.
The majority controls who you can subpoena, when you subpoena,
what investigation officially to launch and can compel, whether it's
a corporation, the White House, whoever, to release documents and
for it and for.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
Except the Trump White House, which nobody can compel because
they have their own special laws.
Speaker 4 (45:24):
That's exactly right. So the in the minority oversight is
very limited. We can't subpoena, we can't force release of documents,
but we can still launch investigations whether or not we
get documents back. If more limited and some choose not
to respond, others others may respond. And for example, companies,
(45:44):
let's say there are companies that are doing business with
the White House. Maybe the White House won't respond to us,
but you know, business X might respond because they're very
aware that we're going to be in the majority at
some point and then the tables are turned, and so
we still will launch investigations. We still need to combat
and take on truth and you know, the lies of
what's actually the truth of these hearies in these committees.
(46:04):
We need to use the star power of our committee.
We have so many incredible members to amplify what's going
on and warn the American Republic and what Republicans are
trying to do. So all of that is still part
of our of our tools that we can that we
can use. But make a mistake. When we win the
majority back, we're going to go hard at the Trump
(46:26):
White House, the Kushner's, Stephen Miller, Donald all of Donald
Trump's enablers, those in the government that are actually writing
these unconstitutional laws and trying to implement them. Christ you know,
I mean there there's there's an endless amount of investigations,
subpoenas elon Musk folks that should be in front of
the Congress answering questions. Uh, And people say, well, you
(46:50):
know you're gonna you know, why are you so backwards? Looking,
and we just need to have a ford looking agenda. Now, look,
if we just sweep all of what this administration is
doing under the rug, then we are saying that this
is okay, that this is somehow the new normal, that
politics has now become, this kind of corrupt, this den
of corruption, and it is our duty to hold these
(47:17):
people accountable when we have the ability to do so.
And if that's we're not able to fully hold them accountable, now,
then you best believe, and we have the majority, we
have to do it. We have no choice.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Representative of Garcia, thank
you the moment, Jesse.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
Cannon, Molly, we know the theme of this show is
mister Trump is flooding the Zone with shit that is
not Epstein. And one of the ways he flooded the
zone is with two hundred and thirty thousand pages on
Martin Luther King, and it seems like it's not doing
the job it's supposed to do, as one could could
probably guess.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
Look, Donald Trump is giving a fuck right about anything
except trying to distract people. So he released all this
MLK stuff. It's interesting to me, like they did this
with the MLK and the RFK stuff, and it seems
to have not gotten the result they wanted, but they've
done it now with MLKA were like minutes away from them,
(48:18):
just being like Area fifty one. It's real aliens.
Speaker 2 (48:23):
Yeah, that seems like the next logical progression.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best
minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.
Hi, I'm Molly john Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds. And the Congressional Budget Office says the
BBB will add a whopping three point four trillion dollars
to the national deficit over the next decade. It will
also knock millions of Americans off Medicaid. We have such
(00:24):
a great show for you today, talking Points memos own
Josh Marshall comes to talk to us about how Trump's
second administration is flailing. Then we will talk to Congressman
Robert Garcia about Congress getting sent home to protect Trump
(00:46):
from the Epstein files being released.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
But first the news, Molly, you know what we got
to not do talk about Epstein because then mister Trump's
could be very mad. So what is he doing in
that case? He's saying lots of crazy shit, posting AI
about resting Obama and the fact is he's doing this
all for destruction because my man is up in those
(01:09):
Epstein files.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
Yeah. So again we don't know what exactly. It just
seems like Trump is worried about something, so worried that
Mike Johnson has no sent Congress home for six weeks, okay,
all of August, two weeks in July, because Democrats did
(01:31):
smartly push his hand, and if Congress stays in DC
and continues voting on things, eventually Republicans will have to
vote against releasing the Epstein files, which puts them in
the intersection of both their conspiracy loving base, right, the
conspiracy loving base that desperately wants to know the truth
(01:53):
and Donald Trump, who desperately wants to not somehow release
these Epstein files. I'm not sure why that would be.
So he sent everybody home, and Trump is now going
to just do anything he can to distract from this story,
which continues to add momentum as it goes on. Again.
You'll remember last week the Wall Street Journal reported on
(02:15):
this salacious birthday note which had a drawing. And again
this has just been from the Wall Street Journal, but
we have seen other drawings that Trump has done that
look like this, which you'll note that Trump had actually
said that he doesn't draw pictures, but in fact, there's
a bunch of pictures he's drawn. And you'll say, you know,
Trump will say there's no, yeah, no relationship with Epstein.
(02:37):
But in two thousand and two he told New York
Magazine that jeff and him both love beautiful women, though
jeffree liked them on the younger side.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, and there's tape of Jeffrey Epstein saying they were
best friends for ten years. So I always go back
to it.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Really, there's tape of that.
Speaker 2 (02:54):
I always go back to that.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Yes, have you heard that tape? Trump is going on
the offensive against his political enemies. He's gone from pumping
conspiracy theories and trying to get his base excited about them,
to worried about conspiracy theories and trying to get his
base to forget about them. It's a pretty quick pivot.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
So while we're on the subject of people who obey
mister Trump no matter what he says or does, we
then get to one Lena Habba, who has now been
replaced as top New Jersey prosecutor by judges until she
gets Senate confirmation.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Elena Habba, you will remember from season one. She was
a fixture at Marlongo. She had a really quite attractive
wore a lot of very attractive clothing, danced around a
very attractive way. Became Trump's lawyer. She had Originally she
was known for her work in traffic Court became Trump's lawyer,
(03:54):
actually made a lot of mistakes with the cases that
she handled for Trump. And that's why, by the way,
it's important to remember when you get despairing about the
moment that American democracy is in, and Jesse and I
really do get despairing. And in fact, I think today
the vibes have been not immaculate. The two of us
have really been down. It's important to remember that this
(04:16):
administration filled with parking lawyers. Okay, these are not their best, okay,
And remember even when we've had administrations filled with the
best and the brightest, and looking at you, Brock Obama,
it's still very hard. Government is very hard, okay, So
getting things done is hard, Serving people is hard. It's
(04:37):
all hard. So I just want to say, like, as
scary as this is, these people are fucking morons. And
by the way, I just want to say, the US
Code stipulates that interim US attorneys are only allowed to
serve for one hundred and twenty days if they're not
confirmed by the Senate or extended by the just re Court.
So we know the houses out, so let's see what happens.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yes, so Trump is pulling us out of the UN
organization UNSCO aka the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
Sounds right for a bunch of philistines. Anyway, what do
you see here, Molly.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
So find someone who likes being mean to you the
way Donald Trump likes being mean to the UN. He
really along with public radio. Donald Trump really hates the UN.
Interesting that he hates the UN so much, but something
to think about. So Tammy Bruce, you may remember her
from being on right wing television. She now is a
(05:39):
spokesman for Trump's I think she's a spokesman for the
State Department, part of the Trump Imperial Organization slash presidency.
They did a ninety day look at UNESCO. They decided
that they were going to pull out of it. They
had pulled out of it once before in Trump's first term,
(05:59):
or as I like to think of it, first season.
They pulled out of it for they said they were
looking for anti Semitism or you know whatever, excessive wokeness,
whatever the bullshit phrase the use. This time, they pulled
out because Palestine is in the organization, That's why. And
they felt that that was anti Semitic or anti Israel bias.
(06:22):
It showed an anti Israel bias, okay, and these people.
Trump also ordered withdraws from international organizations such as the
World Health Organization and the UN Human Rights Council. I mean, honestly,
it's hard for me to imagine Trump staying in the
Human Rights Council. Let's be out here like that. Seems
like you go together like a horse carriage Trump Rights.
(06:46):
I mean, if he's going to stay at it, he's
going to stay in it for the iron A and
the Yungs.
Speaker 3 (06:51):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
So the guy who built Alligator Alcatraz is probably going
to leave the UN Human Rights Counsel.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
Yeah So.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
In an interesting new Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, a
man who, let's just say is nightmare fuel of some
of the things he's been involved with, He's seeking a
meeting with Jeffrey Epstein's associate, just Lenn Maxwell.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Why is Todd Lanch doing this? Why? Why is Todd
Flanch wants to meet with Jeffrey Epstein's associate, just Len Maxwell.
Speaker 2 (07:22):
Why why is Pam Bondy not doing it? Because everybody's
been making some accusations around there. I mean, I wonder
the bind Reels.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Why why would he want to talk to just Len look,
her lawyer has already said something to the effect of
like Donald Trump is awesome and he will protect my car.
You know, he said something like we look forward to
meeting with them. Trump is very involved in pardoning people.
He loves to pardon people, especially wealthy people. Maybe he
(07:52):
won't pardon her, but certainly does feel like that's what
she's looking for. We'll say, stay to the death of democracy.
What will happen next week? We all wait with baited breath.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Well, you're talking as if people who are in power
sometimes cozy up to mister Trump and get pardons, another
unfair treatment.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
That both know. That's very silly. That never happens except
all the time. Josh Marshall is the editor of Talking
Points memo Welcome Back, Too Fast Politics. Josh Marshall, thanks
for having me. It was the best of times, it
(08:36):
was the worst of it, just the worst of times.
Speaker 5 (08:39):
I think, yeah, it's not great, it's it's it's not
a great time for America. I think you have to
think you can state that kind of categorically.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
I wonder, like, I know when you leave the country.
I haven't left the country in like a year since
this presidency started, but I don't doubt that everyone in
all those other countries is pretty horrified by what's going
on here. So I want to start with Congress has
been is being sent home for about a month and
(09:11):
a half because Mike Johnson cannot figure out another way
to get them not to legislate on releasing the Epstein files.
Speaker 5 (09:21):
Yeah, there was this buzz or vibe in the DC
news sheets over the weekend that paradoxically the Journal story
had sort of, you know, flipped the dynamics of this story,
and Trump has his people behind him again and kind
of we're moving on and everything. I was dubious of that,
but I you know, I couldn't be sure. But this
(09:42):
basically shutting down the house and sending everybody home, I
think tells the story. So does the stuff about releasing
these Martin Luther King files. And now Pam Bond He's
going to meet with Glaine Julane and never I've never
known quite how to pronounce her name. Maxwell tastical or
nature stories. They testify against themselves so endlessly on this,
(10:03):
I mean, they keep coming up with these new things
and new diversions.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Yeah, we're like minutes from there are UFOs. I think
is the net net a bit is eventually the White
House will be like, we want to tell you the
truth about the UFOs.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
Epstein, at Roswell.
Speaker 1 (10:20):
Epstein, at Roswell, the ten people who still do what
we do. By the way, it's like from twenty sixteen
to now, it's like they're literally used to be that,
Like eleven people would write the opinion piece. Now there's
like one person.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
I guess that's right.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
We run after these news cycles and it's just like one.
I mean, it's so so so dark. I mean, it's
such a stocking turn of events to have nobody around.
But I wonder if you could talk to us about
why you think like he's definitely throwing everything against the wall,
all the culture war stuff, everything like that. It seems
(10:57):
like the grand jury testimony which will not show that much,
which is why clearly they've decided because it has all redacted, victims,
tams redacted, likely some of the perpetrators or all of
the perpetrator's names redacted. Like that seems like a very
smart way to give something that's nothing, But we know
there are hundreds of pages of information there.
Speaker 5 (11:21):
It's clever in a way, but you know, I don't
think it's enough to really change the dynamics. I mean,
no one, there's no one ever been saying release the
grand jury testimony, we need to see the Epstein grand
Like that's never been anything anybody has said. Also, to
the best of my knowledge, it's not something. I don't
(11:43):
think anybody thinks there's anything really even in those And
they've also stipulated that Pambondi will decide what's relevant and
what's not. So the whole thing is stupid, and I
think it'll, like a lot of these things, I think
it'll have a half life of like a day.
Speaker 1 (11:58):
Right to silence the crit But it's interesting, Like so
when we talk about like the difference between twenty sixteen
and now, because that's something I spent a lot of
time THEMA. And in twenty sixteen, you know, Trump would
fire people, right, He'd say, remember Mattow had this huge
wall of people he had fired, and be like this
one and that one. You know, to be right, hundreds
(12:19):
of people in the wall. There is no wall, right,
he just keeps everyone. I don't know what's happening in
his head, but it certainly seems like the thinking is
if you fire people, you get more leaking, whereas if
you just move everyone around, they still have skin in
the game. Do you think that's what it is, or
do you think there's some even more intrepid reason for
why he's not firing people.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
That's a good question. I hadn't thought of that.
Speaker 5 (12:42):
I think the biggest reason is that he has pre
selected everybody. He hadn't really thought of being president the
first time, and so he had to kind of pull
it together with people who were around, and most of
those people were themselves pretty slimy, but thought he was
nitty and had other dependencies and everything. So almost all
(13:03):
those people had their own agendas and thought he was
a fool, and some of them were from the sort
of the Republican old regime, so he had a lot
of reason to fire people the first time. So I
think that's the biggest reason. But everybody is pre selected.
I mean everybody, Cash Bettel has been you know, he
had that little like you know, cash with the dollar
sign that. I mean, they've all been in part of
(13:25):
Trump Incorporated for like eight years, so they're all in there.
They're all sort of made men and made women in
the organization.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
So that's that's the big reason.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
But Also, I think what you say is right, the
kind of like you know, like with you know, the
congressman from Florida who was head of the NSC for
what like three months or something like that.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Mike Walls.
Speaker 5 (13:44):
Yeah, just give them a little other job and keep
them on the line.
Speaker 4 (13:47):
I think.
Speaker 3 (13:48):
So. I think it's both.
Speaker 5 (13:49):
There are lower level people who've gotten fired, but none
of the people in sort of you know, kind of
really Trump adjacent have been fired.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
I think you're right. I hadn't given that a lot
of thought, But I think it's both those things.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Yeah, it's pretty wild when I think about where we
are at this moment in Trump is. In twenty sixteen,
I had fears that were absolutely rational, fears right about
what would happen to institutions, And what happened instead was
that institutions held and that the Magabase did not get
(14:21):
everything they wanted. But Trump got a lot of stuff,
but he didn't get everything he wanted. Now twenty twenty four,
there are no institutions that are holding. Everybody is caving right.
People are bending over backwards to cave to him right
from the do not obey an advanced guy who lives
in Canada now right, like that guy doesn't even live here,
(14:42):
Like the billionaires are just like we got to make deals.
You know, everybody in the world is caving to Trump.
So it's interesting and instructive to me. I actually think
that what took down Trump the last time, the thing
that was Trump's great sort of foil was ultimately his
(15:03):
own incompetence, which is sort of the top line of
the story we're looking at right now.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
I think that is true.
Speaker 5 (15:10):
I mean, you know, one thing that occurs to me
in what you just said is that, like you talked about,
you know, getting what he wanted. But I have a
slight twist on this, and that is that it took
Trump's whole first term to actually find out what it
was he wanted because basically Trump ran for president with
no idea what he wanted. He thought, you run for president,
(15:34):
If I win, it will be the law that everyone
in the country has to love me.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
That was basically the proposition.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
Right, that's right, That's what he thought the president.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
And then he gets elected, and over the course of
the interregnum between the presidencies, the transition, suddenly he is
getting it from all sides. He's being accused of things
I mean stuff he did, but still that doesn't change
it from Trump's perspective. So well, Trump's whole arc over
the last eight years is this experience of winning the
(16:06):
legal right to have everybody in the country love him,
but having them renege on that obligation and getting mad
and wanting to use the presidency to get back at
the people who did him wrong, who did the Russia investigation,
who made COVID, who made him sad about COVID. So
(16:27):
it's not just you know, people have the sense, well,
he only kind of learned how to use the levers
by the second term, and that's kind of true, But
it was actually also only that he figured out what
he wanted to do right by the end of the
first term. So both of those things are kind of operative.
I know I skipped your original question. That is the
(16:49):
thing that occurs to me.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
It's yeah, at this phase in American democracy, no one
expects anyone to answer a question. Ever, so as long
as you just talk for a few minutes, good enough.
I can't remember what I asked you.
Speaker 3 (17:01):
I can't remember either.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
It wasn't very obviously was not very good.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
It was a subset of my answer was a subset
of it.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Yeah, middle aged, we are here, and it is a problem.
It takes everything I have to not start spiraling into
how do we get out of this thing? And also
I am not convinced like and again, my biggest failing
as a pundit, among other things, the fact that I
can't pronounce people's names. And there are any number of
(17:29):
other failings I have, but one of the ones that
I have is I'm a little bit optimistic. So I
but I'm a little bit optimistic, even though it's a
fucking disaster, right, Like, there is no Muller, there is
no figure on the horizon coming in with papers that
need to be explained. There's none of that. But I
(17:49):
still feel like people hate what Trump is doing. It's
not popular. Trump administration is being held together with scotch tape. Right.
I saw Tom Holman that had Vice today on Morning Joe.
He would look like he was crying, right, I mean,
the guy looked like he did not look good, and
he was like, it's just because you guys are so
mean to us. That's why we have to wear the masks.
(18:11):
And I'm just not sure that you can end this
experiment of American democracy with the dumbest people on the
planet discuss well.
Speaker 3 (18:20):
I think two things.
Speaker 5 (18:21):
One is I think I wrote a post maybe eight
weeks or so into the administration that I thought he
had already lost his effort. And I still think that.
And that doesn't mean that things will not get a
lot worse. I think they will get.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
A lot worse.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
I think that.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
He did things.
Speaker 5 (18:38):
Basically, if you want to sort of impose an autocracy, there's.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Basic things you do and don't do.
Speaker 5 (18:46):
And one thing is you keep the you know what
they in Russia they call the power ministries, the you know,
the domestic police, the army. You keep all of them
on side, You keep the pensioners on side. You juice
the economy. He didn't do those things. He actually antagonized
a lot of key segments of the population, and he
(19:07):
scared a lot of people. First, he scared them with
driving the economy into the ditch, or at least scaring
people that he was in the process of doing that.
He has done that again with this kind of very
performative and also real secret policy stuff. I don't think
you can transform a country like the United States into
an autocracy against sizeable public opposition. Fifty fifty is doable
(19:34):
because if you have the power of the state and
like close to half the people, but he doesn't. He's
really driving huge amounts of opposition. And again I'm not
pollyannish about this. I think this will get much darker,
but I share the basic optimism that what he's doing
is really unpopular and we see that very clearly in
lots of ways, and I think that is fundamentally this
(19:59):
struggle that Trump has imposed on the country is at
the end of the day, fundamentally about public opinion, and
I think he is losing that battle.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Correct. Now, I'm going to add something that is going
to get people upset, but is absolutely right. The base
is fucking furious with Democrat. They are so angry. I
know this because I was on this is my this
is my real people talk. I was on a book tour,
and during my book tour, I would have these events
and people come up to me and they'd be like,
(20:29):
fuck this one, fuck that one. We're unhappy with this,
We're unhappy that. And you know, I'm listening to people
and I'm thinking it's not wrong, Like, it's not wrong.
And here's my question for you, the BBB, So now
Mike Johnson, who's basically men me. Trump has sent everyone
home because he doesn't know how they're going to vote.
So here's my question. Obviously, the Epstein stuff puts a
(20:52):
wrinkle in everything, But I just wonder could Democrats have
somehow engineered a scenario like this before the BBB passed
or do you think that Epstein wrinkle is just such
a seismic change that you could not have done it
any other way.
Speaker 5 (21:07):
There is nothing with the power of the Epstein thing,
specifically about Trump, right, And I think that to a
great extent, even a lot of us didn't know he
was so vulnerable to it.
Speaker 4 (21:19):
Until he told us, right he started.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Doing all these things.
Speaker 5 (21:23):
So I think this Epstein cudgel was not available at
the time.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
A That's part of it.
Speaker 5 (21:30):
The other part of it is that the way that
the budget reconciliation process works is that there are a
lot of privileged resolutions and things like privileged resolutions where
and again I don't know how it exactly lines up
in this case, but there's a lot of things about
the about the reconciliation process, and that's why you can't
(21:52):
filibuster that basically says no, no funny business. You can't
you know, you can't slip in other things that needed
to be voted on. You sort of get the rails
for what you're trying to do. So for both of
those reasons, I don't think this was available. Again the
other part, I don't know all the technicalities, but that's
a big feature of the reconciliation process. Having said that,
(22:12):
there is definitely a sense, and I think we've seen
this in various fronts over the last six months, that
most Democrats are still in the mode of, you know,
you don't want to shut the place down, you don't
want to throw the place into chaos, you want to
get business done, and they're I mean, back in March
(22:34):
the continuing resolution thing was a classic example of that.
And I think elected Democrats are finally starting to shift
a bit from that because what we're hearing now is
at the end of the summer, when they have yet
another one of these, you know they're going to need
another one of these stop gaps. Yeah, yeah, that in
the Senate, they're just going to say no. And I
(22:55):
think that's two reasons. One is that they are also
hearing from the people you've heard from on the book tour,
who are furious, furious, furious, furious. And what has also
been a breaking point for some of those people themselves
is they've just passed this budget, which obviously Democrats don't like.
Even if they didn't maybe you know, fight enough, fight
(23:16):
hard enough against it for some people's taste. But now
they're just going back and undoing parts of the budget
that they prompt you know, So the budget, Yeah, the
budget's meetingless because you just say which parts will we
either do a recision or which parts will.
Speaker 3 (23:28):
Just break the law?
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Right?
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Why even have it?
Speaker 5 (23:31):
All of those things are kind of happening, And to
a certain extent, I always have I always try to
balance these things and how I talk about them with people.
To a certain extent, when the other side has a trifecta,
there's not a lot you can do, especially on budgets
where you have reconciliation and no filibuster. That is hard
for people to accept, right that at the end of
the day, they have the votes. That's it. Having said that, though,
(23:55):
you can make more noise, and I do think you
got some sense of that in the final days where
the BBB was kind of moving towards passage, where a
bunch of prominent Democrats were all over social media the
fine details about rural hospitals, about medicaid, about all this
kind of stuff. We're at least making as much noise
(24:15):
as they could and sort of providing the public with
information about how, you know, upset they should be, but
you know, so it's a little of both. There is
a sense in which it is hard for people to
accept that when you don't have the votes, you don't
have the votes. But there are lots of times and
what sort of set the tone was what happened in March.
People are right to be upset. People are really right
(24:38):
to be upset about elected democrats not being It's not
just not fighting hard enough. It's not fighting hard enough.
It's not being creative enough in how you fight and
fighting on every battle. I mean, this is the part
about about being out of power. You don't you have
a lot of time on your hands, Like what else
are you gonna do? Right, You've got to like, Okay,
(24:59):
you're gonna send more letters to your constituents or whatever,
but fighting on every battle. And that's what I hope,
at least is when the president's standing is approaching forty
sixty you know, levels of opposition, the opposition party should
be really willing to kind of let their freak flag fly, right,
(25:20):
because if sixty percent of the public is opposing the president,
you should be able to as an opposition party, you
should be able to think, like, fuck, I could do
anything and it'll be okay because everybody hates this guy.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Yeah, Josh Marshall, will you come back?
Speaker 3 (25:35):
I will come back.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Congressman Robert Garcia represents California's forty second district and is
the ranking member of Oversight. Welcome too fast Politics. Congressman
Robert Garcia, Hello, I so you're about to be sent
home for a very very long recess.
Speaker 4 (26:00):
Why I mean, this is just so bizarre. I mean, basically,
Mike Johnson and Republicans have decided that because they don't
want to talk about Jeffrey Epstein and they don't want
to force their members to take votes against their King,
Donald Trump, that they're going to send everybody home. They
would rather discard working on lowering costs or trying to
(26:22):
expand health. They don't care about any of those things.
Now they've they've shifted their attention back to protecting Donald
Trump because he has Now you know, flipped this position
on releasing the Epstion files. So it is it is
like fucking insane. This is an insane week. They just
they are obsessed now with playing clean up duty for
(26:42):
Donald Trump.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Basically what's happened right now? Explain how to people who
do not serve in Congress and don't understand the nuances
of the situation, because Democrats actually did cause this, right,
they pushed and pushed and pushed on the Ebstein stuff,
which is also wildly popular and all their stituents want,
and that's how we got here. So explain to us
(27:04):
sort of the mechanism, because this is actually a win
for Minority Leader Jeffries right in a convoluted way. So explain.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
Yeah, So, I mean, take one sit back. So we
know that during the campaign, Donald Trump was obsessed with
releasing the Epstein file. So it became aga rallying cry
talked about all the time, you know the family, I
mean Donald Trump Junior tweeted about a dozens of times.
I mean, this has been center to the to their identity. Then,
of course, now he's in office and we get this reversal.
(27:36):
We know that Pambonni FBI DJ in turmoil. They're all
fighting because there's different opinions on what should be released,
what should be attracted. We now know that Donald Trump
is completely flipped of course his position, and so that
sets up essentially a series of votes that Democrats have
started forcing Republicans to take in subcommittees. We are supporting
(27:59):
of of this petition, which will force a large floor
vote of members. And because you know, Mike Johnson wants
to avoid these embarrassing votes, especially in the Rules Committee,
because the Rules Committee was essentially forcing these Republicans to
take votes Democrats saying release the files, Republicans saying, don't
(28:21):
release them. Mike Johnson decided it was better to then
basically cancel Congress than to have to have his members
continue to take votes on whether or not the Epstein
file should be released, whether we should be subpoena in people.
And that's kind of where where they have left it.
And so us I think by doubling down on essentially saying, hey,
(28:43):
you wanted this, you owe it to the American public.
Let's release these files. We don't did it, we don't
care who it impacts, We just want the truth out there.
Republicans are not running away scared. They can't confront you know,
they can't confront Donald Trump. They want to avoid him
at all costs. And now even they wanted to release
the files. They are now scared of Donald Trump and
(29:05):
are getting a lot of pressure from their base, as
they should be.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
But let's be honest here, Republicans weren't going to pass
any legislation anyway, right. They passed the one piece of
legislation they were going to pass before the midterms, a
bill that grows the deaficit three and a half trillion
dollars but manages And we got the official CBO score
this week, which was like, it's three and a half
billion dollars, doesn't matter what you say. And they wanted
(29:31):
to do this weird stuff cut a state tax cut,
I mean in taxes for very wealthy people. And then also,
I mean, there was nothing they were ever going to
do except you know, there was a recision package that
basically took money away from public radio. So I wonder
if you could talk about sort of like there is
(29:51):
on the horizon this insane healthcare premium situation which is
about to come up, and can you explain that to
us and talk about where we are with that.
Speaker 4 (30:02):
What we do know is, regardless of kind of Republicans'
efforts to try to hide away what was actually this
horrific build and just passed, we have real serious challenges
with the healthcare system, absurance. We have real serious challenges
with how we have to fund the government. We have
challenges right now where what we're not talking about is
the fact that Republicans can't figure out how to actually
(30:22):
appropriate money to keep the government going. I mean, there
are real serious challenges that we actually could be dealing
that are noncesarily even in the form of bills, and
we can be talking about those opportunities and challenges this week.
But the House is completely at a standstill and frozen
because of this damn Jeffrey Epstein skin all that Trump
(30:42):
is basically creating and blowing up.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Right, there's the reason why he's plowing it out.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
Look, here's the bottom line. Donald Trump is in the
Epstein files. We already know that that's publicly been repented.
He said, we're you know, we both like be to
for women. Jeffrey on the younger side, they've been and
they said they were best buddies for ten fifteen years.
I mean, this is both of them have actually said this,
and you know, this last move of trying to get
(31:12):
to Laye Maxwell to actually now you know, to come
testify in subpoena. This is fine, which we support. She
also wants a pardon from Trump and so now he's
trying to work her to get her to say what
he wants her to say. And so while all of
this is happening, we have real problems. I mean, the
health insurance market is in real disarray right now. We
(31:33):
people are going to start and we're are already seeing
it having to pay more for health care. We're having
coalitions of folks that are buying these rates for companies
and nonprofits are seeing rates go up and all and
a lot a lot of that has to deal with
the fact that people know these cuts are now going
to be in the pipeline, and so the health care
(31:53):
industry isn't turnboil. There isn't anyone in healthcare, on the
insurance side, on the hospital side, the provider's side that
doesn't think that the Medicaid cuts and the upcoming kind
of disruption of healthcare isn't going to make health care
worse for everybody else. So if you already have health care.
Your not going to improve, We're gonna actually have less
people covered right fill up and it's a real crisis.
(32:16):
And Trump is not interested in any event except for
giving billionaires big tax breaks.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
Well, in Trump's defense, that's why they put him there.
I wonder if you could you have become ranking on oversight.
This was a harder fought battle of sort of wrestling
power out in the hands of the older generation. This
is the second time this has happened because the first
person they put as the ranking member of oversight died.
(32:45):
Talk to me about how this went down and how
you did it, and also just I'm sure was inter
party squabbling is always pretty tough, So talk to us
about it.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
Yeah, I mean to take what sit back. Like when
Alex Alexandria uh Costure Cartez when she ran for for Rinker,
I was one of the first ones to come out.
I supported her. I was actually there's a nomination process
where you actually get three nominators to nominate U inifront
of the caucus before the big vote, I was winning
for three nominators. I kind of went all in. They
really believed that she was the right person. We needed
(33:21):
a generational change. I thought she had the right message,
and so when she was unsuccessful, actually didn't win the election,
it was hard for a lot of us and there
a lot of us in the caucus felt when are
we going to actually bring in new voices? They basically
shut out from from the process, and so folks like myself,
Jasmine Crockett and Max Frost did a lot of us
(33:43):
really struggled. And so when this other, when this obviously
happened in the in the tragedy with with Jerry, I
think a lot of us would started talking again. We're like,
is this is this going to happen again? Are we
going to maybe at this moment, because when when when
alex Is a election happened and we and you fast
forward to this last one. A lot happened during that time,
(34:04):
and I think the country got even more upset and
people were more energized, and folks want to change even more.
And so that's when I think Jazz and myself in
particular made the decision like, let's get in this fight,
let's bring some change. Let's let's start talking to caucus members.
And I started talking to people across the caucus, and
it was clear to me that folks wanted some not
(34:26):
just generational change, but new voices. And so I, you know,
work my ass off talked to every person's caucus and Work,
you know, worked really hard to share like I have,
I have experience that they brought outside of Congress, and
and I'm grateful that the caucus went in this direction.
And I think you know, you know this, It's been
one hundred years since our caucus has elected a sophomore
(34:49):
to a leadership ranking member position. One hundred years. So
it was time for a change. And I hope that
we have opened the door and elections in the fut
for this continue to happen.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Yeah, this is not a great moment for Democrats, right.
People are super mad and they are mad at leadership.
The R and C has like about six times more
money than the Dncay, I mean, what do you think
is going on?
Speaker 4 (35:18):
One? People are mad. A lot of folks don't trust
people in politics in general. And I think that people
see that we were unable to close the deal and
winning the presidency of the Senate. We have a lot
of work to do, and I think people need to
understand that people view us as a coalition of folks
that have not stood up and fought for working people,
(35:39):
that we were out of touch, that it's to elite,
and I think all of those things, and there are
important lessons there. I think, look at what's happened in
New York, and I mean, so many people have been
talking about the mayor's race, and there's a lot of
opinions there, but you cannot argue with the fact that Zoron,
through simple messaging, a forward looking at and connecting with people,
(36:02):
made a real impact and hell yeah, thing was cleared.
And I think people you know that want to attribute
what happened there to or want to you know, oh, well,
you know, uh, I'm concerned about the fact that he's
the democratic socialist or his position on what's happening in
the Middle East, like that doesn't matter to the average
voter there. In fact, that here's someone that communicated what
(36:26):
that wanted three buses, universal childcare, wanted to freeze my
rent through and I think we have a lot of
lessons to learn from that campaign and from listening to
younger people on the ground, and I think that work
is starting. But I do not think that I'm not
one of those that thinks, oh, we're gonna win the
(36:47):
mid trus and that's a wrap.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
Don't want that's.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
Look I mean to do.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
What I was impressed with with Zorin more than anything
was he got the ones and twos that the low
frequency voters, which had been Harris. And this is not
an indictment of Hairshi had one hundred days, but she
could not get even the fours and vibes out for her. Now,
I think there were a number of other mitigating factors
(37:12):
that had nothing to do with her. But really, I
think that when we see them, when we're looking at this,
really it's really something to think about now. So I
wonder what do you think about Like, we have a
lot of New Ork lawmakers. I'm thinking of a bunch
of people who refuse to endorse Mondani or who are
(37:36):
very negative about him, saying a lot of things that
certainly strike me as somewhat islamophobic. I've been sort of
shocked by the amount of pressure they have put on
you know, they are harder on Mondani than they are
on Trump. So can you make it make sense to me?
Because I'm like earnestly asking you this.
Speaker 4 (37:57):
Yeah, I think the two things. One is, look, people
are going to have their own people have their own
political perspectives and their own relationships New York. I'm not
a New Yorker, so like I get people their grace
to have their opinions my position. I've told this to
my New York friends and others. He is regardless of
what you thought about during the campaign, he is our nominee.
I'm a Democrat.
Speaker 1 (38:18):
Yeah, a crack.
Speaker 4 (38:20):
He's a nominee and the party he should go all
in to support him. That's that's the second thing. And
I've told folks that maybe don't have a relationship with him. Look,
I want I had to spend time with him last
week here in DC. The guy is couldn't be kinder.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
I mean, wait, tell us, can you give us the
circumstances of how you got to spend time with him?
Tell us?
Speaker 4 (38:42):
So, Alexandria AOC brought him to d C for a
meeting openly, she invited the entire caucus anyone wanted to
come to meet with him, and about maybe about thirty
thirty five of us attended this gathering, and it was
a breakfast about him talking about how he thought we
(39:02):
should connect with kind of these our voters, and especially
how to reach working class people. That are not proffiliated
in politics.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Which should be the lesson from his victory, right, because
it's not working. Other people aren't winning that way.
Speaker 4 (39:16):
I mean, he was a master class in communication, in
political strategy. And the one thing I walked away with,
besides the fact that he's brilliant and I'd already been
communicating with his team and him before, was here's someone
who actually gives you a He he comes off because
he is a kind of person, right, And so the
more you put this person in front of voters are
(39:37):
more than gonna like him because he just looks he
comes off as really genuine. Yeah, And I think we
as a party have a lot to learn, not just
from that race, but why some people want candidates and
that stand on principle. They agree with you on every issue,
but they want somebody to stand on principle. And it
actually what you can believe they're actually looking out for
(39:57):
us when we're out here, is that you know, we
need be doing and taking on corruption in all four ms.
We need to be banning members of Congress for treating stocks,
We should be living becoming lobbyists. All these things are
popular with people. They view the system as has gained
against them and for the super wealthy, and so we
have a lot of work to do in that area.
(40:18):
And what people see in Zoron is just an average
guy that cares about the issues they care about, that
wants to help them afford their life a little better.
And I think Democrats, we got to do a better
job there. And that's a big lesson. I think that
a lot of us are taken in.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
Did you see when he came and spoke, did people
have that, say, war members pushing back on him in
that same way that we've seen Jill brand you know,
I mean, did you see that kind of like no?
Speaker 4 (40:50):
Oh, well, the thirty five folks that ended the breakfast,
The reception was warm or excited. People were all talking,
sharing ideas. He was very well received with those that
were in attendance.
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Right.
Speaker 4 (41:04):
I don't think it's a progressive conservative thing. It's people
want fighters who are going to stand up for the
working person and not cozy up to lobbyist billionaires and
big donors. And I think that that can appeal to anybody.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
So let's talk about you are the letter you guys
sent to Fox? You ranking member of an oversight oversights job,
I mean Congress. The Republicans in Congress aren't allowed to
do it because it would make their boss mad. But
the job is oversight. So tell us about this letter
you guys sent to Fox News.
Speaker 4 (41:37):
Yeah, I mean, and look, and the hypocrisy here is
so opt the charts, right, I mean, that's what I
just came. I can't understand in a nutshell. You know,
Fox and Friends, you know, average every viewership of you know,
one point seven million tons of people watch it, as
we know that show. They air an interview of which,
by the way, the irony is Pete Hegseth is one
of the interviewers on this interview. But the interview Donald
(41:58):
Trump and asking about releasing the EPT files, and he
basically responds and says, the first sentence he says is yes,
you know, we should probably release him. We should release him.
That one sentence gets clipped and is aired on the
program and then got it, and then immediately they go
to another question, another topic, and then that clip then
the Trump campaign takes and amplifies that one sentence and
(42:19):
it's everywhere release THEE file files. What we later find
out in that you know, the broader interview, he actually
answers that he goes there about a minute or a
minute response of where it's a much more nuanced response
about well, maybe there's some things in there that Easton
near not mine opitu. Well they didn't actually air that.
It was available later, but didn't air that. Now, in
(42:42):
a normal world, we know that that happens. Sometimes news
newscasts clip things and take things out of context. This
I think was much different. It was deliberate, it was
clearly we're trying to change the message. But why do
we highlighted it? Is because Trump just settled for sixteen
million dollars with CBS and Paramount for essentially accusing them.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
Of doing doing the very same thing that Fox News did.
Speaker 4 (43:07):
Right right, and so he gets you know, he gets
sixteen million bucks out of Paramount for basically the same
exact thing. And so we've been at We've asked pot
Fox a series of questions about the back and forth
about you know, what they knew and they communicate with
with the Trump team and where they directed to make
these cuts. And we've asked a series of questions of
(43:29):
Fox use we hope, we hope we get a response. Mean,
who knows now that Fox is being sued by Donald Trump.
Maybe they'll be more receptive to our inquiry. But we
wanted to just highlight the immense hypocrisy of Donald Trump here,
and also we wanted to highlight and we're now reviewing
where else did Donald Trump actually get his interviews edited
(43:50):
that we don't know about yet, saying that he should
be suing everyone. He can sue everybody, get settlements and
get money, but then do the exact same thing. I mean,
I so it's the hypocrisy that's insane. So hopefully we're
gonna get some more information for Fox in the weeks ahead.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
Can you explain to us oversight the job of oversay
right now? You don't Democrats don't control the House, so
you don't have the ability to set the schedule. You
still have some I mean, I feel like one of
the things that people are so angry about is they're like,
why can't Democrats do more? And there's a reason why, right,
(44:26):
so explain to us a little bit. I feel like
some of the problems here are that people just don't
totally understand how Congress works. I mean, almost no one does,
because we it's pretty much the fault of the media.
We don't cover it enough, but explain the.
Speaker 4 (44:40):
Big difference is so oversight of the committee is the
investigative branch of the Congress. Right, so this committee is
the committee that has the subpeda power that can launch
investigations for the Congress, that can if there's ever an impeachment,
it goes for this committee all sorts of immense power
in the investigation and transparency kind of arena, but that
(45:02):
those powers are in the sense of control of the majority.
The majority controls who you can subpoena, when you subpoena,
what investigation officially to launch and can compel, whether it's
a corporation, the White House, whoever, to release documents and
for it and for.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
Except the Trump White House, which nobody can compel because
they have their own special laws.
Speaker 4 (45:24):
That's exactly right. So the in the minority oversight is
very limited. We can't subpoena, we can't force release of documents,
but we can still launch investigations whether or not we
get documents back. If more limited and some choose not
to respond, others others may respond. And for example, companies,
(45:44):
let's say there are companies that are doing business with
the White House. Maybe the White House won't respond to us,
but you know, business X might respond because they're very
aware that we're going to be in the majority at
some point and then the tables are turned, and so
we still will launch investigations. We still need to combat
and take on truth and you know, the lies of
what's actually the truth of these hearies in these committees.
(46:04):
We need to use the star power of our committee.
We have so many incredible members to amplify what's going
on and warn the American Republic and what Republicans are
trying to do. So all of that is still part
of our of our tools that we can that we
can use. But make a mistake. When we win the
majority back, we're going to go hard at the Trump
(46:26):
White House, the Kushner's, Stephen Miller, Donald all of Donald
Trump's enablers, those in the government that are actually writing
these unconstitutional laws and trying to implement them. Christ you know,
I mean there there's there's an endless amount of investigations,
subpoenas elon Musk folks that should be in front of
the Congress answering questions. Uh, And people say, well, you
(46:50):
know you're gonna you know, why are you so backwards? Looking,
and we just need to have a ford looking agenda. Now, look,
if we just sweep all of what this administration is
doing under the rug, then we are saying that this
is okay, that this is somehow the new normal, that
politics has now become, this kind of corrupt, this den
of corruption, and it is our duty to hold these
(47:17):
people accountable when we have the ability to do so.
And if that's we're not able to fully hold them accountable, now,
then you best believe, and we have the majority, we
have to do it. We have no choice.
Speaker 1 (47:26):
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Representative of Garcia, thank
you the moment, Jesse.
Speaker 2 (47:36):
Cannon, Molly, we know the theme of this show is
mister Trump is flooding the Zone with shit that is
not Epstein. And one of the ways he flooded the
zone is with two hundred and thirty thousand pages on
Martin Luther King, and it seems like it's not doing
the job it's supposed to do, as one could could
probably guess.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
Look, Donald Trump is giving a fuck right about anything
except trying to distract people. So he released all this
MLK stuff. It's interesting to me, like they did this
with the MLK and the RFK stuff, and it seems
to have not gotten the result they wanted, but they've
done it now with MLKA were like minutes away from them,
(48:18):
just being like Area fifty one. It's real aliens.
Speaker 2 (48:23):
Yeah, that seems like the next logical progression.
Speaker 1 (48:27):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best
minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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