June 26, 2025 • 48 mins
Think Like an Economist podcast’s Justin Wolfers examines our newly widened trade deficits.
FairVote’s David Daley details why ranked choice voting should be implemented everywhere.
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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 one hundred and twenty eight Democrats
across the aisle to help Republicans block Al Green's bid
to impeach Trump. We have such a great show for
you today, the Think Like an Economists podcast. Justin Wolfers
(00:23):
joins us to talk about trade. Then we'll talk to
Fair Votes David Daily about why rank choice voting is
actually amazing and should be everywhere.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
But first the news, Molly, I have to say, in
our years of dealing with politics, I don't think I've
ever seen New York City's elites with their bed like
they have today over zor on Mom Donnie getting the
Democratic nomination era. It seems the business world and the
Democratic establishment are well, really really overdoing the drama about
(00:58):
what this means.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
It is unbelievably crazy how angry things people are.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Here's what's happening. A lot of people.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Are worried that he's going to raise taxes, and that
is really what's happening. I think there are some people
who are worried he's not sufficiently pro Israel enough, but
I'm not sure what the mayor of New York has
to do with Israel particularly, but a well known investor
deleted an ex post suggesting mon Donnie's win was a
(01:31):
nightmare for billionaire investors, name checking Bloomberg, Ackman, and Low.
It wasn't me who did that, but it could have been. Look,
a lot of very rich people are already saying they're
going to move to Florida.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
If I had a dollar for every.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Time wealthy people got mad and said they were going
to move, I would have a lot of dollars.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
You'd have a lot because there was actually a study
on this one. The last time they said it when
Bill de Bungler got elected and guess what, we got
even more of them here.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Yes, Now, I want to caution because you and I
both are Mom and Donnie curious.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
I'm a little more than curious.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
You're maybe a little less curious, but I'm very curious
about him, and I have a lot of optimism about this.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
That's all I say.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
But we do want to note that being mayor is
really fucking hard.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
And you know, it's a lot of shit that you.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Have to do, and sometimes we get excited and then
people can't do it now. I don't think that's going
to be the case here. But no one has ever
been mayor who has ever gone on to anything.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
It's just a fact.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
As you and I have discussed many times, it's not
a job you leave being popular as New York City mayor.
It's just doesn't go so well for your approval.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
And in my mind, that's the scariest part about this win.
But he obviously wants it, and he's quite a gifted politician.
So we're just gonna all keep our fingers and toes crossed.
But Fox News, I just want everyone to be aware,
is now going to go full core press on New
York City being a houscape and anything they did to
(03:07):
Eric Adams is going to be one hundred times worse
to Zoran.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
That's funny because Eric Adams was just on news Max
because he knows which folks he's running for. So yes,
it's going to be a very wild ride from here
to November.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
It's going to be a terrible general election. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
I would really encourage a lot of people to, instead
of reading propaganda from campaigns, actually read some quotes that
some people say, because boy, have I never seen misinformation
fly like the last two days on Twitter.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
And I would also suggest not reading the New York
Post as much as we love page six. You know,
we have one local paper, it's a New York Post.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
We have two, we have two. Come only news does exist?
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Okay, we have one local paper, it's the New York Post.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
You know.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Look, I like the Daily News much more ideologically aligned
with that. But you know, don't read it. Okay, just
read page six and throw the rest of the thing out.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Okay, I'm going to get us onto another subject.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
You're not going to cut that out.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Man.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
If one thing put.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
On, the listeners will be we be hearing that. Bali
jug Fast endorses page.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Six, indorses page six, but tells you to throw the
rest of the newspaper, and then you're opposed to out.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Yeah, okay. So Trump is going to limit sharing classified
info with Congress after the week on I Red's bombing
damage because he's very upset that everybody found out that
he bungled this.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
If you can't read the headline without laughing, then it's
a Donald Trump headline. So I just want to point
out I know that there have been other things going on,
but let's just go through this again. Trump on Saturday decides, unprovoked,
that he is going to bomb a Rand's nuclear site.
Maybe he does it because he was watching Fox News.
(04:55):
Maybe he does it because Net and Yahoo makes him
want to do it.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Who even what lurks in the mind of Donald Trump.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
But whatever he does, he decides to bomb the nuclear
sites in Iran.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
He tweets about it a lot.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
He decide they have numerous planes going over there, they
have decoys. Now we don't know. Trump said he destroyed
all of the nukes and that he's the greatest president ever.
He also said that he's six four and has a
full head of natural hair, and that gets that color
from the sun. Okay, so I'm gonna say a lot
(05:30):
of the reporting I've read shows that maybe they're back
a few months.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Maybe they're not.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Maybe some of the nukes are in other places. Maybe
Aran doesn't know where they are. I mean, this has
not solved anyone's problems. It's made life a little more dangerous.
Then a Monday, Trump declared a ceasefire. Again, not entirely
clear if there is a ceasefire, because when you have
a white house like this, you can't believe anything they say.
(05:58):
But the point of all of this is Iran probably
not very you know, probably would have been better just
to have kept them in the nuclear deal like Obama did.
This doesn't make any sense. And also Trump now embarrassed
and trying to cover for himself, and so he's trying
(06:19):
to leak the information that's given to Congress in the
hopes that he will look better in the press. Again,
I just want to point out, this is so fucked Okay,
this is not how any of this is supposed to work.
This is just a completely bad, bad, very dysfunctional way
to run a country.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Strongly, so we now have seen Nancy Pelosi backing a
Democratic effort to limit Trump on Oran and going to war.
I think it's interesting to hear this bipartisan support for this,
but don't know where it's going. What are you seeing?
Speaker 1 (06:56):
I mean, look, it's very scary to think that someone
as autocratic, curious Trump is very aggressive and very angry
and hard to reason with. And this seems like a
very worrying turn of events. And bombing the nukes is
you know, this was an unprovoked assault on another country
(07:18):
that was not run through Congress the way it's supposed
to be. So Congress has so given up everything to
have this presidency. They have really just refused to hold
Trump accountable. They did not do due diligence with his
cabinet members. They did not, you know, at every point,
they just gave away their power. So anything that Congress
(07:42):
does to take back a little bit of power I
think is very good. Congress should grow a spine. And
by the way, the fact that there's only one person
who's really standing up to Trump on the Republican side,
Thomas Massey and Rand Paul. You know, you may not
like them, you may not agree with them, but those
guys have done way more than Susan Collins.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Yes, sounds right. So Molly, you're going to be shocked
to hear that there's some corrupt dealing inside the House
of the White House. This time it's Stephen Miller, who
turns out owns a quarter of a million dollars of
Pollunteer stock. That's the high end estiment, I should say.
And Pollunteer, of course, is being contracted to do work
(08:26):
with Ice.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
No, no, it cannot be. Pollenteer is getting a lot
of government contracts. We've had so many guests on this podcast,
who have told us about the many, many, many government
contracts that volunteer has gotten. Look the idea that you
could profit while serving your country. This is what Trump
(08:48):
wanted in from one point zero and has perfected in
Trump two point zero, which is this kind of low
level cryptocracy. Now that said Miller doesn't have a ton
of palateer stock. He has somewhere between one hundred and
two one hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of pounder stock.
And you know, this is like the Elon musk Lesson.
We know pollunteer data intelligence mining software. They're not the
(09:10):
good guys, okay, And just like with Elon, we're setting
ourselves up so that the government is going to be
dependent on a company that is at best nefarious. Justin
Wolfers is the host of the Think Like an Economist
podcast and a professor at the University of Michigan.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Welcome to Fast Politics, Justin Wolfers.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
He Molly, I thought we're going to rename it fast Economics.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
We're in this such a fucked up moment in American life.
You came on a lot to talk about the trade wars.
We've now won the trade wars, So that's over.
Speaker 5 (09:46):
That was the war the wolf, the trade fl is
who I'm going for those of us.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Who have not been living and breathing Donald Trump ruining
our economy. Talk to us about where we are right now?
Speaker 4 (09:57):
Great question, because actually it's very, very hard to read.
So what I want to do is draw a distinction
between what economists call hard data. These are the numbers
that come out of the government, and it's things like
how much we produce, how many people are employed, what
are they paid, what's rolling off the production line, versus
soft data when you go and ask people how they feel,
and it could be as simple as like are you
(10:17):
optimistic about the future of the economy, But it could
also be asking a business like do you plan to
invest a lot? So soft data and hard data, it's
not a strong distinction, but it's it's important. It turns
out right now the soft data are incredibly weak, unbelievably weak.
In a recession week, you ask people about their own finances,
(10:38):
their families, finances, their expectations for their business, they're miserable.
You'll sometimes see some headlines which is business confidence rose,
but that's because it rose from like horrific to terrible.
So remember, don't think about rise and fall, think about
where we are. So the soft data there is miserable.
The hard data is not. Now it's it's not ecstatic,
(11:01):
but it's basically saying we're in a pretty good economy
where we were in a great position when Trump came
to power, and things have kept going. The unemployment rate
was low, it's still low. The number of people who
have jobs is still growing. The economy had a bit
of a blip, maybe not so much. Now here's the problem.
It's a really deep problem. Tariffs screw everything up. And
(11:22):
I'm not saying they're bad for the economy. I'm saying
they make the economy hard to read.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Here's why.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
In the first quarter of this year, everyone knew tariffs
were coming, so businesses all of a sudden started importing
all the inventory they could get from China, and as
a result, the trade balance blew out. But there was
a lot of spending. But what they're doing is they're
trying to get ahead of the tariffs. So that made
business spending and in fact, a lot of consumers that
you might have friends who bought a dishwasher or a
washing machine or a laptop in advance, So a lot
(11:50):
of spending occurred. Now that spending is not because the
economy is strong, it's because they're trying to get ahead. Now,
a lot of what they were buying is stuff they
would have bought in the second quarter, and so there's
an echo effect. Don't believe the first quarter numbers. They're
too strong. The second quarter is sort of going to
be too weak. Right, So that means we don't actually
know where the economy is going in the hard data.
But it's actually even worse than that, because in the
middle of all of this, Trump kept messing around with
(12:12):
tariff some more. You might remember that lovely weekend where
on a Friday tariffs on the European Union were fifty
percent and by Monday they were back down to ten percent.
I've also got to lie nine coming up, which is
the end of ninety and ninety days.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Right, And by the way, do we have ninety deals
and ninety days?
Speaker 4 (12:30):
I am not going to follow your add brain now.
I am going to finish my store, but you do.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
But we don't have ninety days and ninety deals and
ninety days. I just want to point.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
Still going to finish my story, all right, right? An
you tell me I'm getting boring.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
No, I'm telling you I am completely completely tuned in
on what you're saying. Go on, really going, I can
test you now, just keep going, God damn.
Speaker 5 (12:54):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
The thing is the present keeps currying around with tariffs.
So what could happen is people front run again, right,
and that'll screw up our economic data through this year.
So we're here from Molly. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
We're not getting a clear picture of what the data
of what is happening.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
So when someone says to you, oh, the hard data
is all good, you're like, it's distorted by tariff nonsense.
So normally what we do in a moment like that
is we turn to the soft data. Right with the
soft data is it's so bad. It turns out some
people don't like Trump. It turns out that he's been
a polarizing figure. And so for the previous fifty years
(13:34):
in American life, when you ask someone what do you
think about the state of the economy, they would answer
that question by thinking about the state of the economy.
Now what they do is they think about who's present,
whether they like that guy, and they answered that way.
So the soft data have become unreliable, which means we're
sailing through very, very thick fog. Anyone who tells you
they're certain it's good or bad is wrong.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Can we trust the data we get from our government?
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Yes, I love that question, Thank you, MOLLI. I want
to put in astix. Okay, here's the asterisks. The official
data coming from the government, anything that comes from the
Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the
Census Bureau, stuff produced by nerds is totally reliable. I'm
not saying it's perfect. I'm saying it's the best statistical
guess of things that are very hard to guess. Anything
(14:19):
coming out of the White House, which has a history
of stretching the truth, lying at best, bullshit and so on,
and also in competence, so sometimes they put out falsehoods
because they don't know truths, is utterly unreliable. Now, often
the White House will be reporting on their understanding of
the official data. But I do think it's important. I
(14:40):
don't believe a word coming out of the Treasury Secretary,
the Commerce Secretary, the President, the White House Press secretary,
or in fact, anyone who's spent more than fourteen minutes
contaminated on the White House grounds, but official government data
is okay. Second ASTERIXX. There is a little bit of
defunding of the government statistical nerds going on right now.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Yes, that's why I am ask that question because that's
what I had been told.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
Right. It's really a bad idea, because it's really good
to know where the economy is.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Right.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
Remember I just told you we're galling through fog. Wouldn't
it be good if the world were a little clearer.
But the thing about that is that makes the statistics
less reliable, but it doesn't make them more trumpy. Right,
So if you're worried all this telling stories, this is nonsense,
This is bullshit. No, And here's the thing I want
your listeners to understand. I'm not just a talking head
who's just saying a thing. I have so many friends
(15:29):
in these statistical agencies. They're PhD economists, they're super nerds,
and I love them, and they're super committed to their
work and their craft. And I promise you if they
were being asked to distort for political reasons, there will
suddenly lots of anonymous Gmail messages appearing in my inbox,
and I will then call you, Molly and say, I
got to talk to your people. This has got to
(15:51):
get out there.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Well, because you are an academic, right I mean a nerd?
And well I don't I as someone who's married to
an academic, I don't think of it as being a nerd.
So we can trust the data out of the government
for now and tell us about the ninety deals in
ninety days. Also, it's amazing to me, you know who
(16:13):
has completely disappeared from the conversation.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
You're going to have to tell me because I must
have forgotten who they are. Ron Vera, Well that is
that is why don't you explain to the listeners?
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Because really deep, I'll let you explain to the listeners.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
So can I go back to the beginning of that story?
Is quite lovely, which is, of course, we know the
President Trump hates trade, so he asked Jared Kushner very
early on. He said, find me a trade advisor who's
also against trade. The problem is that nearly every economist
thinks that when you find ways to enrich the life
of others and they find ways to enrich your life,
that's a good thing. So you have to go shopping
(16:52):
to find someone who's on the other side of that.
So Jared Kushner went to Amazon and found a fellow
who written a book that said how much he hated China.
So that's great, you get racism for free with your
anti trade theories. That book was written by a fellow
by the name of Pete Navarro, who is now a
convicted felon, but at the time was a professor of Economa.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Just had bad ideas. Right.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
Look, life is hard to some people. And some people
grow up thinking that they're going to be the smartest
kid in the room, and they are all the way
through high school, and then at a certain point they
top out and they become bitter, and they come to
believe that they and they alone hold the keys to
all truth. So this book that Jared Kushner bought. The
author of the book was written by Peter Navarro, who
throughout this book keeps writing about how an expert ron
(17:41):
Vara authenticates everything that he says. Now you'll notice if
you play a lot of scrabble, that ron Vara is
just a rearrangement of the letters of Peter Navarro. So
it is true. There are two economists in the world
who support what the president is doing. They just both
happen to be the same person. How did you get
me to start? I'm not bitch or can I'm a person.
(18:02):
I like people.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Sure, don't do that to me again, Molly baby? And
ninety days ago?
Speaker 4 (18:09):
How many times we're going to say something nice about someone?
Can we have a nice break?
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Okay, say something nice about someone? Vasa Trump is very tall?
Speaker 4 (18:17):
You know what? Okay, I'm going to say two nice things,
and I'm going to challenge your So the first one's easy,
which is I admire J. Powell, who's getting called all
sorts of names.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
And then that guy that is a remarkable job. He
is having a tough, tough job. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
And when I want to upset my liberal students, and
I sometimes want to julp them a little bit, I
tell them that the most important economic policy prehaps of
my lifetime happened under and was caused by President Trump,
and that was the invention of the vaccine. Without the vaccine,
we would not be out doing business, enjoying our lives
and so on. And so I want to tip my
hat to President Trump and Operation warp Speed.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
My eighty D is getting bored. Okay, you still.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Didn't say anything nice.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
I said of uncle Trump is very tall.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
That is mostly true. Okay, deals very very tall.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Yep, that's not nothing.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
Go and she and I share a and you share
a hair color.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
That is sort of go on, continue ninety.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
Deals in ninety days, We'll promise by Pinavara and the
President and the Treasury Secretary and the Commerce secretary, ninety
deals in ninety days. We're about seventy days in right now.
We sort of kind of have a deal with the UK.
Last time I spoke with your audience. The deal we
had was a pre deal. It was a deal to
make a deal outline of a deal that subsequently became
(19:41):
a deal. Although in that deal the most important part
of it for the British was letting British steal in
and that is still being negotiated, so even the deal
is still mid deal. So that means we've got eighty
nine other deals to go, and that ignores the other
one hundred and two countries in the world. And then
today we had President Trump over at NATO where he's
upset at the Spanish threatening to put extra double tariffs
(20:04):
on Spain. So to be clear, he's upset about American
military spending, Sorry about Spanish military spending. So he's decided
to impose taxes on Americans. Yes, it's not the most
direct way of doing foreign poves.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
No, it's pretty crazy.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
So look, the deals aren't happening. It's clear they're not
going to happen. I think that if people were betting
on zero at the end, the White House will pull
something out. So it's basically not going to happen. But
there is this problem, which is on July ninth, if
you don't have a deal, something's going to happen. And
we don't. And remember July ninth is going back to
Liberation Day, which we all knew was a disaster. So
(20:43):
the problem with governing in ninety day pauses is time
keeps ticking and you actually still have to make a decision,
and we have no indication so far of a coherent
decision being made.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Right now, there are still tariffs in place, and they're
like weird. So for example, I wonder if you could
just run us through where we are. We have tariffs
on Mexico and Canada, but just ten percent right.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
Even better than that, which is those guys actually ended
up our lowest tariff partners having started the trade war
by fighting them, they're actually now my best friends again,
which is anything that meets the conditions of the old NAFTA,
which is now called USMCA.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Right, because like, oh but okay.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
So there's two ways in which tariffs work, and I
apologize to your audience for the confusion, but let me
just say I didn't design them. There's tariffs that are
going on countries, right, and then there are so think
about that as horizontal and their verticals, which is tariff's
on industries, okay, And so Canada still, I believe Canada
(21:47):
and Mexico, I believe is still getting steel and aluminum,
order certain auto parts these industries. So in the words,
we've got pharmaceuticals coming and so on and so forth.
Those ones, by the way, rest on them much stronger
legal basis. Right then, country by country, We've got China
right now at thirty percent. We are charging Americans thirty
(22:08):
percent for everything they buy from China, and we've got
the rest of the world at ten percent. And unless
anyone thinks that any of this is a low tariff raid,
I just want to remind you that this would put
tariffs at the highest rate in at least fifty years.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
It would put us in greater depression.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
Right, it depends what day, because they literally are changing
the tariff's day by day. Right, would put us four
or five times higher than any other industrialized country. So
this is not what grown ups do, Mollie. I have
a fun thing I want to bring to the conversation.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Mat plase, yes, and then I have another question about
I won't have a question about steel tariffs.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
Go on, Okay, this is better than steel tariffs. This
is Jdevans. So remember, way back when I think it
was two days ago, we ate a lot about Iran
in the Strait of Homors, which is this very little
narrow part where a lot of the oil tankers go through.
So jd Vance said, this is a quote, and I
just want to get the quote out for people there.
(23:05):
He's talking about Iran. Their entire economy runs through the
Strait of Homos. If they want to destroy their own
economy and cause disruptions in the world, I think that
would be their decision. But why would they do that.
I don't think it makes any sense right now. He
was talking about Iran. But now just let's think about
how this speaks to the United States. So for us,
(23:26):
much of our economy runs through our ports, just as
much of the Iranian economy runs through the Strait of Homos,
And just as Iran can use its military to prevent
ships passing through the Strait of Homos, Trump has been
using tariffs to prevent ships coming into the LA ports
and retaliatory tariffs to prevent them from leaving. And so
much as those shipping restrictions would hurt the Iranian economy,
(23:49):
this is hurting our own economy much as Vance said,
This is again is a quote. If they want to
destroy their own economy and cause disruptions in the world,
I think that would be their decision. That's literally what
Trump is doing with tariffs. And remember Vans and but
why would they do that? I don't think it makes
any sense. And I think that Evans has done a
(24:10):
terrific job in pointing out the aut incoherence of this
trade policy.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Yes, correct and also hilarious. Now talk to me about
the steel tariffs, because there are steel tariffs that Trump
is putting on and they actually are, weirdly one of
the few things that Democrats agree with.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
So talk to us about that.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
Yeah, then Democrats about make me a very very big mistake.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
I'm just telling you, and that's my job here.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
No, and I appreciate you. Molly. I was like, steel
sounds boring, but now I understand why it's important.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
Yeah. And also the steel is paid with tariffs on
another metal. What is it, Molly, aluminum? Aluminium?
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Yes? Go on, go on, go on, go on, yest.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Little Australian American humanity.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Hilarious.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
Okay, here's why steal tariffs are a terrible, terrible, terrible idea.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
But first explain why liberals, why some Democrats also support them.
You might do a better job on that than me, But.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Anyway, tell why they're bad, Say why they're bad.
Speaker 4 (25:17):
Okay, what I can say is, you know, back in
the eighties, the particularly pro union parts of the labor
movement were quite protectionists. So Trump has taken a position
that was historically a very liberal position. When I began
my teaching career, my left wing students hated it when
I talked about trade. Now it's my right wing.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Students, right.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Really important point that Democrats used to be protectionist before Clinton,
and then they shifted right.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
During was fighting Democrats to get it done right. So
I want to let me actually start with a bigger
picture point, which is when many people think about trade,
they think about like France sends us bottles of wine
and we send them cars, that we create the whole
damn car and send it over there, and they create
the whole damn bottle of wine and send it over here.
That's not how it works in reality. We don't have
(26:02):
any rubber trees in America, so we don't make the
whole damn car. We got to get the rubber from
abroad to make the tires. And it's not just rubber
and rubber trees. It turns out that all the different
components of the car come from all computer chips might
come from Taiwan, and the seats might come from Canada,
and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. The moment
you realize that, you realize that when you put tariffs
(26:25):
on something, you're not just putting tariffs on consumers. You're
putting tariffs on American businesses. So there's two things that
are really important about steel and aluminium. First of all,
stick they are very very important inputs into other parts
of manufacturing. So what that means is every factory around
the world can get access to steel without paying a
special up charge, except those in America. So what you're
(26:48):
doing is you are making American factories that you steal
less competitive than any other countries.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
They have to pay more because of the tariffs.
Speaker 4 (26:55):
Oh that reminds me. Let me make a second point
that is obvious to economists but needs to be Some
people say, oh, just buy American steel.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
There is no American steel.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
There is American steel.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Oh.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
But the problem is if you're an American steel manufacturer
and your customer calls and says, I'd like to buy
some steel, you can say, well, you could either buy
from me or buy from those foreign guys. And if
you buy from those foreign guys, you have to pay
a twenty percent tariff. Right, all of a sudden, now
I realize I can jack up my price and you
don't have a better choiceh So when you say, oh,
just buy American, sure you can buy American, but I
(27:29):
guarantee you because steel is traded internationally, it's all the
price is going to get equalized. And so as a result,
the price of American steel goes up almost one for
one with a tariff. So it's not just imports that
become more expensive. It's also American steel, it becomes more expensive.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
Oh, that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
It's called in economics, by the way, the lore of
one price. When something is traded internationally, we at one
price around the world. Okay, now I want to tell
you why steel is a really really bad place for
what tariffs.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
No, because we're almost out a time, and I want
you to talk to us about how the Middle East
is going to affect the economy.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
Ryan has been fascinating and we all became experts on
the Iranian economy and it's been a terrific couple of
days learning about it. And a lot of people have said, oh,
that Trump is it's a master stroke in the Middle East,
and in some sense it is. It hasn't turned into bushes.
I raq nonsense.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Yeah, it's been like four days, but yes, And.
Speaker 4 (28:24):
I just want to remind you that as of today's Tuesday, Wednesday,
whatever day it is, I.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
Think it's Wednesday, we are now back.
Speaker 4 (28:32):
To exactly where we were seven days ago. The great
triumph is that he restored relations to where they had been.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Right.
Speaker 4 (28:39):
If that stays, then basically nothing changes right right?
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Right?
Speaker 4 (28:44):
If that doesn't and Iran's oil production goes down. That's
not a big deal, right, because Iran is only two
or three percent of global production. The reason we've all
learned how to pronounce the Strait of Homus is because
that's this tiny little alley where all of the oil,
particular from Saudi Arabia goes through, but also the Emirates,
and so twenty percent of global oil goes through that.
(29:06):
So if Iran were to close that, that would be
a massive decline in the amount of oil available. Now,
realize the United States is basically is in fact energy independent,
So it's not that we're going to lose a lot
of money. But remember what I said a moment ago
about the law of one price. It's going to become
more expensive for oil, including American oil, right, And so Americans,
(29:28):
even though we're mostly buying American oil, are going to
be paying more if the straight up Homewars closes. So
that's the real problem is if there's a shock to
global oil supply, it's not going to be a big
shock to our income because again, remember we actually produce
more than we use. But it would be a shock
to prices, and so it could potentially have further effects
on inflation. But right now I am hopeful that our
(29:53):
steady and stable foreign policy will continue to reap incredible rewards.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Justin for adding a
bit of levity.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
That wasn't liberty, that was the stable foreign policy. Jesus
fucking Christ, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
David Daly is a senior fellow at Fair Vote and
the author of rat Fucked, Why Your Vote Doesn't Count.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Welcome back to Fast Politics, David, Oh, it's good to
be here, Molly.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Let's talk about rank choice voting. I still don't understand
how it works.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
That's the truth.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Like I saw the election of Mary Paroda in Alaska
congresswoman for Alaska's one congressional seat Democrat one through ranked
choice voting. I saw we got Eric Adams. Nobody wanted
that through rank choice voting. But now we have mon Dannie,
who actually was leading in the polls and is reflective
(30:55):
of I think the voting. And this was after the
first round. So talk us through how rank choice voting
works place.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
Sure, Absolutely, rank choice voting really is an effective tool
to give voters more power anytime there's a race with
more than two candidates, whenever there's two candidates, it's all
pretty easy, right, you pick one or the other. Somebody
usually wins more than fifty percent of the vote, unless
there's a right end or you know, something silly. But
(31:22):
whenever you have more than two candidates, you have the
possibility of a spoiler, You have the possibility of a
split field, you have the possibility of a non majority winner.
And that is, you know, not a great thing. What
it does is it takes choice that voters want right.
(31:42):
Voters want to have lots of candidates in a race.
They want to be able to choose. But when you
can only pick one, it makes your life as a
voter exceptionally complicated. Look at New York City yesterday, where
you had a field of eleven mayoral candidates. If you
(32:03):
want to vote for somebody who your favorite candidate might
be fourth or fifth in the polls, So then you
have to decide, well, is it okay for me to
vote for this person who's fourth or fifth? By doing so,
am I really electing the person I like the least.
It's an impossible situation to be in, and you run
the risk of somebody winning with thirty five percent of
(32:24):
the vote or even less who everyone does not want.
So with rank choice voting, what you get to do
is put your choices in order. Every race is a
little bit different. In New York yesterday, you were able
to select your top five and you're able to say, well,
I want this person first, this person second, this person third.
(32:44):
It's a pretty common intuitive thing for most of us.
We can look at a race with lots of people
and you know, imagine how it would play out. Who
we like, who we don't like. And it works as
simple as this. If somebody wins more than fifty percent
in the round, they win, just like any other election.
But if nobody wins fifty percent in the first round,
(33:06):
the bottom candidates are eliminated. And what happens then is
if your candidate is still alive, your vote stays with them.
If your candidate is knocked out, it moves to your second,
third choice, and so on. The runoff process continues until
there is a majority winner. Really, what OURCV does is
(33:27):
it creates a majority winner from a huge field and
empowers voters to turn choice into something positive.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Okay, so I want you to explain this rank choice
voting is supposed to And I say this because I
have really scrupulously avoided getting involved in the Democratic mayoral
primary for any number of reasons. But I'm curious ranked
choice voting it is advertised as electing the most centralized candidate.
(33:59):
Does that bear out from yesterday?
Speaker 5 (34:01):
No, I don't think that's right. I don't think RCV
does elect the most centrist candidate. I think it elects
the candidate with the broadest and widest support. And sometimes
that might be a centrist. But sometimes what we saw
in New York yesterday is it's a thirty three year
old Democratic socialist who has majority support. I mean, OURCV
(34:24):
has been used in Virginia to elect Glenn Youngkin. It
has been used in Alaska to elect everyone from Mary
Peltola to Nick Beggish to Lisa Murkowski. What RCV does
is it creates a majority winner, and it encourages candidates
to run more unifying campaigns. I would say that instead
(34:47):
of electing a centrist, really, what RCV does is it
elects somebody who goes out and talks to everyone. It
sets up different campaign incentives. If you can win a
race with thirty out of the vote, like you could
have in New York City prior to our CV, then
the kind of race that Andrew Cuomo ran makes a
(35:08):
lot more sense.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Right.
Speaker 5 (35:09):
He avoided the press, he avoided the public, He didn't
show up at a lot of panels to talk to people,
and he thought that his name recognition and money would
muscle him through to thirty eight or forty percent in
a divided field, and then you would have had a
mayoral nominee that sixty percent of people voted against, but
you would be the choice. Nevertheless, Mom Donnie campaigned in
(35:32):
a very different way right. He built bridges amongst the
entire left in liberal universe. He camp in with the
other candidates. You saw candidates campaigning together. You saw Mom
Donnie asking his supporters to help raise money for Adrian Adams.
(35:52):
You saw the alliances and the cross endorsements. When Mom
Donnie was at one percent in the polls back in March,
the Working Families Party, instead of endorsing one candidate and
coorinating somebody right, they endorsed a slate of four and
they allowed the campaign to play out. If there had
not been ranked choice voting, what you probably see in
(36:15):
New York City is that there would have been pressure
amongst the left liberal candidates to drop out of the
race to coalesce around one person, so that nobody spoiled
it or produced a winner with thirty five percent. Instead,
we got an actual campaign about actual issues. Nobody was
telling anyone to drop out of the race, and when
the actual issues were discussed and debated, you saw the
(36:39):
candidate at one percent catch fire. And the result is,
you know, a fairly seismic upset.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Yeah, you know, that's a really good point, and I
don't think I put that together. So what you're saying
is that rank choice voting means that it's not the
same kind of high stakes situation. So, for example, one
of the big problems we have in Congress, among other things,
and we have a lot of problems in Congress, and
I am here to tell you about them, but one
(37:05):
of the big problems we have in Congress is that
the name recognition does in fact muscle people through.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
I'm thinking of Tom Taylis.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
That you can sort of go for your forty one
percent or you're thirty nine percent, thirty nine and a
half percent, and with Democrats because they're polite and they
you know, if you're if you have seniority, you kind
of win because people you know. I mean, that's one
of the things that I've really been critical about in
for Democrats. So the thinking here is basically that because
(37:37):
you are ranking, you can keep a bigger field.
Speaker 5 (37:41):
You can keep a bigger field, you give voters more choice.
There's less pressure on candidates not to jump into a primary, right.
I mean, in a race like New York yesterday, people
would have been telling a candidate like Mom Dannie to
wait his turn. Instead, he's able to run without any
fear of being a spoil, spoiler tracting from other progressives
(38:03):
or liberals.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
In the race.
Speaker 5 (38:05):
There's a lot of really good uses for this, and
I think what you've identified in Congress is really right
on right. What we've seen in Congress is because so
many districts, as we've talked about on the show before,
have been gerrymandered so that one side or the other
wins in a lopsided fashion. The only competition for these
seats is in partisan primaries, and so what you often
(38:29):
get is a low turnout summer election that effectively determines
the race for everybody, because the winner of the primary
goes on guaranteed to November, and that is how you
end up with some of the most polarizing figures in Congress.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
Right a Marcherie Taylor Grand They.
Speaker 5 (38:47):
Won primaries with thirty five thirty six percent of the vote,
and then, because the district was so wired one way
or the other, they are effectively locked into a race.
And then because of the power of incumbency and name recognition,
they can hold on to it forever. Ranked voice voting
is an especially useful tool in party primaries, you know,
as it is in general elections, but really truly in
(39:11):
party primaries where eleven or twelve people are seeking the
same seat and somebody can win with a tiny plurality
of the vote, it's better for parties and it's better
for voters to use our CV.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
So where is our CV in getting adapted? Too different?
Speaker 1 (39:28):
I mean, what, first of all, the pushback on it? It's interesting,
So Virginia has our CV.
Speaker 5 (39:34):
Virginia Republicans have used our CV in their primaries. Wow,
that's wild, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Right?
Speaker 1 (39:41):
First of all, why have Virginia Republicans used it in
their primaries? Because I don't think of Republicans as and
May also has it, and Alaska, So explain to us
sort of how this gets adapted, and how this doesn't
get adapted, and what this looks like now, and why
did Republicans pick it in Virginia.
Speaker 5 (39:59):
Republic in Virginia picked it because they were looking at
a primary for governor in twenty twenty one that was
going to have four or five candidates in it, and
everybody was from a different ideological lane. Everybody was at
each other's throats, and they realized that OURCV would create
a different kind of race, that it would create a
race in which the candidate with the broadest and deepest
(40:22):
support one and it would be more unifying.
Speaker 4 (40:26):
You saw this in New York City yesterday.
Speaker 5 (40:28):
As well, right that Andrew Cuomo conceded that race, you know,
on day one, and we will see if he runs
as an independent or not. But it doesn't look off
of his statements yesterday that he's inclined to do so.
So you end up without the kind of nastiness and
bitterness that you have in a typical intra party primary.
(40:48):
What you would have had in Virginia in twenty twenty one,
what you would have had in New York over the
last couple of months, would have been candidates at each
other's throats, going deeply negative, essentially the other side talking
points or the fault to use against them, and just
you know, in general bitterness and anger inside the party.
Oh well, that that person took a nomination for right, but.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
That doesn't happen because you want to be ranked even
if you're not the first choice.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
Oh that's really interesting.
Speaker 5 (41:18):
You're less likely to go nuclear on the other folks, right.
I mean, if New York City was using a traditional
old school runoff, what you would have seen is all
of the Liberals fighting to be the second person going
up against Cuomo. Instead of campaigning together and finding common
(41:39):
ground with each other and showing up after Brad Lander
is arrested, they would have been at each other's throats,
and the Left in New York City would not have
been unified at all heading into this campaign. Instead, it's
a completely different race. Virginia Republicans say the exact same thing,
that they were able to produce a nominee. Nobody could
(42:01):
argue it because there was much more than fifty percent,
and they headed into the fall and they beat Terry mccauliffe, right,
they pulled off an upset nobody imagine you can compare
that to what happened in New Jersey's governor primary a
couple of weeks ago, right in which you had Mickey
Cheryl win that race, but with about thirty three thirty
four percent from a highly contested primary. Everybody went deeply
(42:26):
negative on each other for a weeks and weeks handed
Republicans talking points for the fall. New Jersey to be
a pretty safe state for Democrats, but Republicans set some
blood in the water. There's a lot of money in there.
Wouldn't it be better if for the Democrats if they
had come together around a nominee and they were using
(42:47):
these months to go after the other side rather than
try to heal those wounds internally.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
Yeah, why don't we do that?
Speaker 4 (42:54):
Well?
Speaker 5 (42:54):
I think we should, And I think what we're seeing
is more and more states and localities understand and the
benefits of this as more and more voters use it
and like it. There was a Common Cause pull back
in twenty twenty one in New York that shows something
like ninety one percent of voters found it easy to
use and liked it. I think that voters are going
(43:15):
to say, why don't we get to use this as well?
And why can't we use it? In every campaign. We're
going to be heading towards right a twenty twenty eight
presidential primary season sooner than anybody realizes, right, and there
could be huge fields on both sides. You had twenty
five Democrats back in twenty twenty four, seventeen Republicans back
(43:36):
in twenty sixteen. Imagine what an open race on both
sides brings out. And we could again see you know,
non majority nominees coming out, the kinds of choices Americans
get end up being being weakened. And you know, I mean,
all you have to do is look back at twenty
twenty in the Democratic primary, right, all those candidates, all
(43:57):
of them fighting with each other, elbowing each other out.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
Of providing for child that he is still using.
Speaker 5 (44:06):
Right, right, when Harris goes after Biden on bussing in
the twenty twenty Democratic debates, that's still a moment that
Republicans were using against her in the twenty for election.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Yeah, I mean, a very good and salient point. Right now,
where is rank choice voting?
Speaker 5 (44:25):
Rank choice voting is being used right now in Maine,
It's being used in Alaska, it is being used in
a number of cities nationwide. Whether it's New York, big
cities in Minnesota, big cities in California, Oakland, San Francisco.
But it is also being really widely used across Utah.
(44:46):
So it is happening in red states, it's happening in
blue states, it's happening in purple states. There is an
awful lot of momentum around this because voters recognize it
as a tool that delivers them something they really want,
more choice, but also ensures that that choice doesn't become complicated,
(45:07):
and it guarantees a majority winner. So it encourages bigger, broader,
more issue based campaigns. And what we see is everywhere
it's being used, voters like it, want to expand it,
and I think we're going to continue to see even
more of them.
Speaker 3 (45:25):
Thank you, thank you, thank you, David, thank you, Molly.
A moment.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
Jesse Cannon Bally, a whistleblower, is alleging that Trump's DOJ
told lawyers to disobey court orders. And you'll be really
shocked to hear this about who was leading that charge,
amulbo Yes, well, Bali, could you catch the listeners up
For those who forget this fellow's name, war per ops
(45:56):
confuse him with like a guy with a creole restaurant
in New Orleans or something.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
Thing Bove is bad, Bov is real bad.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
So, by the way, so Bob is up for a judgeship.
And that's why some of this is coming out. This
whistleblower who was fired by both for refusing to do
some of this stuff he wanted. So the guy who
was fired was a career a justice partman lawyer who
was fired fired after truthfully staying in court that the
(46:26):
administration had wrongfully removed Kilmar Albrego Garcia. You'll remember him
from earlier this season when he was deported to Seacott
and then the Trump administration said they couldn't find him,
and then they said they wouldn't bring him back, and
then they said, by the way, I just want to
point out they're spending so much money and time on
one person, like even just besides the moral and ethical
(46:51):
implications of just deporting people because they have they look
like a race you're mad at. Even despite the moracle
and ethical issues here, it's just a stupid fucking waste
of time, right, I mean, this guy, it would it's
just I mean, it's you know, millions of dollars being
(47:11):
spent on this guy, and it's just insane anyway. So
Bob Trump has nominated him for a seat on the
US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. And now
we have this whistleblower who's coming out and saying that
Bob said things like we might need to consider telling
the courts to fuck you and ignore any court order.
(47:33):
I mean, look, we know this was going on behind
the scenes, but it's certainly nice to have someone report it.
Todd Blanche, She'll remember Todd Blanche. He's the deputy Attorney
general and he was also Donald Trump's criminal lawyer, because
Donald Trump only knows four people. The New York Times
article describes falsehoods purportedly made by a disgruntled former employee
(47:56):
and elite to the press in a violation of ethical obligations.
Says Blanche, he actually wrote that on Twitter. Again. Obviously
both did this. Obviously Todd Blanche is lying. Has anyone
seen this White House? You know? If it's anything like
one point, Oh, they're going to be a bazillion memoirs
of people who tried to work in the White House
(48:21):
and got traumatized by Trump. I mean, I can't believe
we're still fucking covering this. 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
(48:41):
of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast, please
send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
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 one hundred and twenty eight Democrats
across the aisle to help Republicans block Al Green's bid
to impeach Trump. We have such a great show for
you today, the Think Like an Economists podcast. Justin Wolfers
(00:23):
joins us to talk about trade. Then we'll talk to
Fair Votes David Daily about why rank choice voting is
actually amazing and should be everywhere.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
But first the news, Molly, I have to say, in
our years of dealing with politics, I don't think I've
ever seen New York City's elites with their bed like
they have today over zor on Mom Donnie getting the
Democratic nomination era. It seems the business world and the
Democratic establishment are well, really really overdoing the drama about
(00:58):
what this means.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
It is unbelievably crazy how angry things people are.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Here's what's happening. A lot of people.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Are worried that he's going to raise taxes, and that
is really what's happening. I think there are some people
who are worried he's not sufficiently pro Israel enough, but
I'm not sure what the mayor of New York has
to do with Israel particularly, but a well known investor
deleted an ex post suggesting mon Donnie's win was a
(01:31):
nightmare for billionaire investors, name checking Bloomberg, Ackman, and Low.
It wasn't me who did that, but it could have been. Look,
a lot of very rich people are already saying they're
going to move to Florida.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
If I had a dollar for every.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Time wealthy people got mad and said they were going
to move, I would have a lot of dollars.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
You'd have a lot because there was actually a study
on this one. The last time they said it when
Bill de Bungler got elected and guess what, we got
even more of them here.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
Yes, Now, I want to caution because you and I
both are Mom and Donnie curious.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
I'm a little more than curious.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
You're maybe a little less curious, but I'm very curious
about him, and I have a lot of optimism about this.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
That's all I say.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
But we do want to note that being mayor is
really fucking hard.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
And you know, it's a lot of shit that you.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Have to do, and sometimes we get excited and then
people can't do it now. I don't think that's going
to be the case here. But no one has ever
been mayor who has ever gone on to anything.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
It's just a fact.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
As you and I have discussed many times, it's not
a job you leave being popular as New York City mayor.
It's just doesn't go so well for your approval.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
And in my mind, that's the scariest part about this win.
But he obviously wants it, and he's quite a gifted politician.
So we're just gonna all keep our fingers and toes crossed.
But Fox News, I just want everyone to be aware,
is now going to go full core press on New
York City being a houscape and anything they did to
(03:07):
Eric Adams is going to be one hundred times worse
to Zoran.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
That's funny because Eric Adams was just on news Max
because he knows which folks he's running for. So yes,
it's going to be a very wild ride from here
to November.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
It's going to be a terrible general election. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:25):
I would really encourage a lot of people to, instead
of reading propaganda from campaigns, actually read some quotes that
some people say, because boy, have I never seen misinformation
fly like the last two days on Twitter.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
And I would also suggest not reading the New York
Post as much as we love page six. You know,
we have one local paper, it's a New York Post.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
We have two, we have two. Come only news does exist?
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Okay, we have one local paper, it's the New York Post.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
You know.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
Look, I like the Daily News much more ideologically aligned
with that. But you know, don't read it. Okay, just
read page six and throw the rest of the thing out.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Okay, I'm going to get us onto another subject.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
You're not going to cut that out.
Speaker 2 (04:09):
Man.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
If one thing put.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
On, the listeners will be we be hearing that. Bali
jug Fast endorses page.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Six, indorses page six, but tells you to throw the
rest of the newspaper, and then you're opposed to out.
Speaker 3 (04:21):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Yeah, okay. So Trump is going to limit sharing classified
info with Congress after the week on I Red's bombing
damage because he's very upset that everybody found out that
he bungled this.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
If you can't read the headline without laughing, then it's
a Donald Trump headline. So I just want to point
out I know that there have been other things going on,
but let's just go through this again. Trump on Saturday decides, unprovoked,
that he is going to bomb a Rand's nuclear site.
Maybe he does it because he was watching Fox News.
(04:55):
Maybe he does it because Net and Yahoo makes him
want to do it.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Who even what lurks in the mind of Donald Trump.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
But whatever he does, he decides to bomb the nuclear
sites in Iran.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
He tweets about it a lot.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
He decide they have numerous planes going over there, they
have decoys. Now we don't know. Trump said he destroyed
all of the nukes and that he's the greatest president ever.
He also said that he's six four and has a
full head of natural hair, and that gets that color
from the sun. Okay, so I'm gonna say a lot
(05:30):
of the reporting I've read shows that maybe they're back
a few months.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Maybe they're not.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Maybe some of the nukes are in other places. Maybe
Aran doesn't know where they are. I mean, this has
not solved anyone's problems. It's made life a little more dangerous.
Then a Monday, Trump declared a ceasefire. Again, not entirely
clear if there is a ceasefire, because when you have
a white house like this, you can't believe anything they say.
(05:58):
But the point of all of this is Iran probably
not very you know, probably would have been better just
to have kept them in the nuclear deal like Obama did.
This doesn't make any sense. And also Trump now embarrassed
and trying to cover for himself, and so he's trying
(06:19):
to leak the information that's given to Congress in the
hopes that he will look better in the press. Again,
I just want to point out, this is so fucked Okay,
this is not how any of this is supposed to work.
This is just a completely bad, bad, very dysfunctional way
to run a country.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Strongly, so we now have seen Nancy Pelosi backing a
Democratic effort to limit Trump on Oran and going to war.
I think it's interesting to hear this bipartisan support for this,
but don't know where it's going. What are you seeing?
Speaker 1 (06:56):
I mean, look, it's very scary to think that someone
as autocratic, curious Trump is very aggressive and very angry
and hard to reason with. And this seems like a
very worrying turn of events. And bombing the nukes is
you know, this was an unprovoked assault on another country
(07:18):
that was not run through Congress the way it's supposed
to be. So Congress has so given up everything to
have this presidency. They have really just refused to hold
Trump accountable. They did not do due diligence with his
cabinet members. They did not, you know, at every point,
they just gave away their power. So anything that Congress
(07:42):
does to take back a little bit of power I
think is very good. Congress should grow a spine. And
by the way, the fact that there's only one person
who's really standing up to Trump on the Republican side,
Thomas Massey and Rand Paul. You know, you may not
like them, you may not agree with them, but those
guys have done way more than Susan Collins.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Yes, sounds right. So Molly, you're going to be shocked
to hear that there's some corrupt dealing inside the House
of the White House. This time it's Stephen Miller, who
turns out owns a quarter of a million dollars of
Pollunteer stock. That's the high end estiment, I should say.
And Pollunteer, of course, is being contracted to do work
(08:26):
with Ice.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
No, no, it cannot be. Pollenteer is getting a lot
of government contracts. We've had so many guests on this podcast,
who have told us about the many, many, many government
contracts that volunteer has gotten. Look the idea that you
could profit while serving your country. This is what Trump
(08:48):
wanted in from one point zero and has perfected in
Trump two point zero, which is this kind of low
level cryptocracy. Now that said Miller doesn't have a ton
of palateer stock. He has somewhere between one hundred and
two one hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth of pounder stock.
And you know, this is like the Elon musk Lesson.
We know pollunteer data intelligence mining software. They're not the
(09:10):
good guys, okay, And just like with Elon, we're setting
ourselves up so that the government is going to be
dependent on a company that is at best nefarious. Justin
Wolfers is the host of the Think Like an Economist
podcast and a professor at the University of Michigan.
Speaker 3 (09:30):
Welcome to Fast Politics, Justin Wolfers.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
He Molly, I thought we're going to rename it fast Economics.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
We're in this such a fucked up moment in American life.
You came on a lot to talk about the trade wars.
We've now won the trade wars, So that's over.
Speaker 5 (09:46):
That was the war the wolf, the trade fl is
who I'm going for those of us.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Who have not been living and breathing Donald Trump ruining
our economy. Talk to us about where we are right now?
Speaker 4 (09:57):
Great question, because actually it's very, very hard to read.
So what I want to do is draw a distinction
between what economists call hard data. These are the numbers
that come out of the government, and it's things like
how much we produce, how many people are employed, what
are they paid, what's rolling off the production line, versus
soft data when you go and ask people how they feel,
and it could be as simple as like are you
(10:17):
optimistic about the future of the economy, But it could
also be asking a business like do you plan to
invest a lot? So soft data and hard data, it's
not a strong distinction, but it's it's important. It turns
out right now the soft data are incredibly weak, unbelievably weak.
In a recession week, you ask people about their own finances,
(10:38):
their families, finances, their expectations for their business, they're miserable.
You'll sometimes see some headlines which is business confidence rose,
but that's because it rose from like horrific to terrible.
So remember, don't think about rise and fall, think about
where we are. So the soft data there is miserable.
The hard data is not. Now it's it's not ecstatic,
(11:01):
but it's basically saying we're in a pretty good economy
where we were in a great position when Trump came
to power, and things have kept going. The unemployment rate
was low, it's still low. The number of people who
have jobs is still growing. The economy had a bit
of a blip, maybe not so much. Now here's the problem.
It's a really deep problem. Tariffs screw everything up. And
(11:22):
I'm not saying they're bad for the economy. I'm saying
they make the economy hard to read.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Here's why.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
In the first quarter of this year, everyone knew tariffs
were coming, so businesses all of a sudden started importing
all the inventory they could get from China, and as
a result, the trade balance blew out. But there was
a lot of spending. But what they're doing is they're
trying to get ahead of the tariffs. So that made
business spending and in fact, a lot of consumers that
you might have friends who bought a dishwasher or a
washing machine or a laptop in advance, So a lot
(11:50):
of spending occurred. Now that spending is not because the
economy is strong, it's because they're trying to get ahead. Now,
a lot of what they were buying is stuff they
would have bought in the second quarter, and so there's
an echo effect. Don't believe the first quarter numbers. They're
too strong. The second quarter is sort of going to
be too weak. Right, So that means we don't actually
know where the economy is going in the hard data.
But it's actually even worse than that, because in the
middle of all of this, Trump kept messing around with
(12:12):
tariff some more. You might remember that lovely weekend where
on a Friday tariffs on the European Union were fifty
percent and by Monday they were back down to ten percent.
I've also got to lie nine coming up, which is
the end of ninety and ninety days.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
Right, And by the way, do we have ninety deals
and ninety days?
Speaker 4 (12:30):
I am not going to follow your add brain now.
I am going to finish my store, but you do.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
But we don't have ninety days and ninety deals and
ninety days. I just want to point.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
Still going to finish my story, all right, right? An
you tell me I'm getting boring.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
No, I'm telling you I am completely completely tuned in
on what you're saying. Go on, really going, I can
test you now, just keep going, God damn.
Speaker 5 (12:54):
Okay.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
The thing is the present keeps currying around with tariffs.
So what could happen is people front run again, right,
and that'll screw up our economic data through this year.
So we're here from Molly. I don't know.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
We're not getting a clear picture of what the data
of what is happening.
Speaker 4 (13:13):
So when someone says to you, oh, the hard data
is all good, you're like, it's distorted by tariff nonsense.
So normally what we do in a moment like that
is we turn to the soft data. Right with the
soft data is it's so bad. It turns out some
people don't like Trump. It turns out that he's been
a polarizing figure. And so for the previous fifty years
(13:34):
in American life, when you ask someone what do you
think about the state of the economy, they would answer
that question by thinking about the state of the economy.
Now what they do is they think about who's present,
whether they like that guy, and they answered that way.
So the soft data have become unreliable, which means we're
sailing through very, very thick fog. Anyone who tells you
they're certain it's good or bad is wrong.
Speaker 3 (13:54):
Can we trust the data we get from our government?
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Yes, I love that question, Thank you, MOLLI. I want
to put in astix. Okay, here's the asterisks. The official
data coming from the government, anything that comes from the
Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the
Census Bureau, stuff produced by nerds is totally reliable. I'm
not saying it's perfect. I'm saying it's the best statistical
guess of things that are very hard to guess. Anything
(14:19):
coming out of the White House, which has a history
of stretching the truth, lying at best, bullshit and so on,
and also in competence, so sometimes they put out falsehoods
because they don't know truths, is utterly unreliable. Now, often
the White House will be reporting on their understanding of
the official data. But I do think it's important. I
(14:40):
don't believe a word coming out of the Treasury Secretary,
the Commerce Secretary, the President, the White House Press secretary,
or in fact, anyone who's spent more than fourteen minutes
contaminated on the White House grounds, but official government data
is okay. Second ASTERIXX. There is a little bit of
defunding of the government statistical nerds going on right now.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
Yes, that's why I am ask that question because that's
what I had been told.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
Right. It's really a bad idea, because it's really good
to know where the economy is.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Right.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
Remember I just told you we're galling through fog. Wouldn't
it be good if the world were a little clearer.
But the thing about that is that makes the statistics
less reliable, but it doesn't make them more trumpy. Right,
So if you're worried all this telling stories, this is nonsense,
This is bullshit. No, And here's the thing I want
your listeners to understand. I'm not just a talking head
who's just saying a thing. I have so many friends
(15:29):
in these statistical agencies. They're PhD economists, they're super nerds,
and I love them, and they're super committed to their
work and their craft. And I promise you if they
were being asked to distort for political reasons, there will
suddenly lots of anonymous Gmail messages appearing in my inbox,
and I will then call you, Molly and say, I
got to talk to your people. This has got to
(15:51):
get out there.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Well, because you are an academic, right I mean a nerd?
And well I don't I as someone who's married to
an academic, I don't think of it as being a nerd.
So we can trust the data out of the government
for now and tell us about the ninety deals in
ninety days. Also, it's amazing to me, you know who
(16:13):
has completely disappeared from the conversation.
Speaker 4 (16:16):
You're going to have to tell me because I must
have forgotten who they are. Ron Vera, Well that is
that is why don't you explain to the listeners?
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Because really deep, I'll let you explain to the listeners.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
So can I go back to the beginning of that story?
Is quite lovely, which is, of course, we know the
President Trump hates trade, so he asked Jared Kushner very
early on. He said, find me a trade advisor who's
also against trade. The problem is that nearly every economist
thinks that when you find ways to enrich the life
of others and they find ways to enrich your life,
that's a good thing. So you have to go shopping
(16:52):
to find someone who's on the other side of that.
So Jared Kushner went to Amazon and found a fellow
who written a book that said how much he hated China.
So that's great, you get racism for free with your
anti trade theories. That book was written by a fellow
by the name of Pete Navarro, who is now a
convicted felon, but at the time was a professor of Economa.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
Just had bad ideas. Right.
Speaker 4 (17:18):
Look, life is hard to some people. And some people
grow up thinking that they're going to be the smartest
kid in the room, and they are all the way
through high school, and then at a certain point they
top out and they become bitter, and they come to
believe that they and they alone hold the keys to
all truth. So this book that Jared Kushner bought. The
author of the book was written by Peter Navarro, who
throughout this book keeps writing about how an expert ron
(17:41):
Vara authenticates everything that he says. Now you'll notice if
you play a lot of scrabble, that ron Vara is
just a rearrangement of the letters of Peter Navarro. So
it is true. There are two economists in the world
who support what the president is doing. They just both
happen to be the same person. How did you get
me to start? I'm not bitch or can I'm a person.
(18:02):
I like people.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
Sure, don't do that to me again, Molly baby? And
ninety days ago?
Speaker 4 (18:09):
How many times we're going to say something nice about someone?
Can we have a nice break?
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Okay, say something nice about someone? Vasa Trump is very tall?
Speaker 4 (18:17):
You know what? Okay, I'm going to say two nice things,
and I'm going to challenge your So the first one's easy,
which is I admire J. Powell, who's getting called all
sorts of names.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
And then that guy that is a remarkable job. He
is having a tough, tough job. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
And when I want to upset my liberal students, and
I sometimes want to julp them a little bit, I
tell them that the most important economic policy prehaps of
my lifetime happened under and was caused by President Trump,
and that was the invention of the vaccine. Without the vaccine,
we would not be out doing business, enjoying our lives
and so on. And so I want to tip my
hat to President Trump and Operation warp Speed.
Speaker 3 (18:56):
My eighty D is getting bored. Okay, you still.
Speaker 4 (19:00):
Didn't say anything nice.
Speaker 3 (19:02):
I said of uncle Trump is very tall.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
That is mostly true. Okay, deals very very tall.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
Yep, that's not nothing.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
Go and she and I share a and you share
a hair color.
Speaker 3 (19:16):
That is sort of go on, continue ninety.
Speaker 4 (19:20):
Deals in ninety days, We'll promise by Pinavara and the
President and the Treasury Secretary and the Commerce secretary, ninety
deals in ninety days. We're about seventy days in right now.
We sort of kind of have a deal with the UK.
Last time I spoke with your audience. The deal we
had was a pre deal. It was a deal to
make a deal outline of a deal that subsequently became
(19:41):
a deal. Although in that deal the most important part
of it for the British was letting British steal in
and that is still being negotiated, so even the deal
is still mid deal. So that means we've got eighty
nine other deals to go, and that ignores the other
one hundred and two countries in the world. And then
today we had President Trump over at NATO where he's
upset at the Spanish threatening to put extra double tariffs
(20:04):
on Spain. So to be clear, he's upset about American
military spending, Sorry about Spanish military spending. So he's decided
to impose taxes on Americans. Yes, it's not the most
direct way of doing foreign poves.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
No, it's pretty crazy.
Speaker 4 (20:19):
So look, the deals aren't happening. It's clear they're not
going to happen. I think that if people were betting
on zero at the end, the White House will pull
something out. So it's basically not going to happen. But
there is this problem, which is on July ninth, if
you don't have a deal, something's going to happen. And
we don't. And remember July ninth is going back to
Liberation Day, which we all knew was a disaster. So
(20:43):
the problem with governing in ninety day pauses is time
keeps ticking and you actually still have to make a decision,
and we have no indication so far of a coherent
decision being made.
Speaker 1 (20:53):
Right now, there are still tariffs in place, and they're
like weird. So for example, I wonder if you could
just run us through where we are. We have tariffs
on Mexico and Canada, but just ten percent right.
Speaker 4 (21:09):
Even better than that, which is those guys actually ended
up our lowest tariff partners having started the trade war
by fighting them, they're actually now my best friends again,
which is anything that meets the conditions of the old NAFTA,
which is now called USMCA.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Right, because like, oh but okay.
Speaker 4 (21:27):
So there's two ways in which tariffs work, and I
apologize to your audience for the confusion, but let me
just say I didn't design them. There's tariffs that are
going on countries, right, and then there are so think
about that as horizontal and their verticals, which is tariff's
on industries, okay, And so Canada still, I believe Canada
(21:47):
and Mexico, I believe is still getting steel and aluminum,
order certain auto parts these industries. So in the words,
we've got pharmaceuticals coming and so on and so forth.
Those ones, by the way, rest on them much stronger
legal basis. Right then, country by country, We've got China
right now at thirty percent. We are charging Americans thirty
(22:08):
percent for everything they buy from China, and we've got
the rest of the world at ten percent. And unless
anyone thinks that any of this is a low tariff raid,
I just want to remind you that this would put
tariffs at the highest rate in at least fifty years.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
It would put us in greater depression.
Speaker 4 (22:24):
Right, it depends what day, because they literally are changing
the tariff's day by day. Right, would put us four
or five times higher than any other industrialized country. So
this is not what grown ups do, Mollie. I have
a fun thing I want to bring to the conversation.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Mat plase, yes, and then I have another question about
I won't have a question about steel tariffs.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
Go on, Okay, this is better than steel tariffs. This
is Jdevans. So remember, way back when I think it
was two days ago, we ate a lot about Iran
in the Strait of Homors, which is this very little
narrow part where a lot of the oil tankers go through.
So jd Vance said, this is a quote, and I
just want to get the quote out for people there.
(23:05):
He's talking about Iran. Their entire economy runs through the
Strait of Homos. If they want to destroy their own
economy and cause disruptions in the world, I think that
would be their decision. But why would they do that.
I don't think it makes any sense right now. He
was talking about Iran. But now just let's think about
how this speaks to the United States. So for us,
(23:26):
much of our economy runs through our ports, just as
much of the Iranian economy runs through the Strait of Homos,
And just as Iran can use its military to prevent
ships passing through the Strait of Homos, Trump has been
using tariffs to prevent ships coming into the LA ports
and retaliatory tariffs to prevent them from leaving. And so
much as those shipping restrictions would hurt the Iranian economy,
(23:49):
this is hurting our own economy much as Vance said,
This is again is a quote. If they want to
destroy their own economy and cause disruptions in the world,
I think that would be their decision. That's literally what
Trump is doing with tariffs. And remember Vans and but
why would they do that? I don't think it makes
any sense. And I think that Evans has done a
(24:10):
terrific job in pointing out the aut incoherence of this
trade policy.
Speaker 1 (24:15):
Yes, correct and also hilarious. Now talk to me about
the steel tariffs, because there are steel tariffs that Trump
is putting on and they actually are, weirdly one of
the few things that Democrats agree with.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
So talk to us about that.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
Yeah, then Democrats about make me a very very big mistake.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
I'm just telling you, and that's my job here.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
No, and I appreciate you. Molly. I was like, steel
sounds boring, but now I understand why it's important.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (24:44):
Yeah. And also the steel is paid with tariffs on
another metal. What is it, Molly, aluminum? Aluminium?
Speaker 3 (24:51):
Yes? Go on, go on, go on, go on, yest.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
Little Australian American humanity.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Hilarious.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
Okay, here's why steal tariffs are a terrible, terrible, terrible idea.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
But first explain why liberals, why some Democrats also support them.
You might do a better job on that than me, But.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Anyway, tell why they're bad, Say why they're bad.
Speaker 4 (25:17):
Okay, what I can say is, you know, back in
the eighties, the particularly pro union parts of the labor
movement were quite protectionists. So Trump has taken a position
that was historically a very liberal position. When I began
my teaching career, my left wing students hated it when
I talked about trade. Now it's my right wing.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
Students, right.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Really important point that Democrats used to be protectionist before Clinton,
and then they shifted right.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
During was fighting Democrats to get it done right. So
I want to let me actually start with a bigger
picture point, which is when many people think about trade,
they think about like France sends us bottles of wine
and we send them cars, that we create the whole
damn car and send it over there, and they create
the whole damn bottle of wine and send it over here.
That's not how it works in reality. We don't have
(26:02):
any rubber trees in America, so we don't make the
whole damn car. We got to get the rubber from
abroad to make the tires. And it's not just rubber
and rubber trees. It turns out that all the different
components of the car come from all computer chips might
come from Taiwan, and the seats might come from Canada,
and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. The moment
you realize that, you realize that when you put tariffs
(26:25):
on something, you're not just putting tariffs on consumers. You're
putting tariffs on American businesses. So there's two things that
are really important about steel and aluminium. First of all,
stick they are very very important inputs into other parts
of manufacturing. So what that means is every factory around
the world can get access to steel without paying a
special up charge, except those in America. So what you're
(26:48):
doing is you are making American factories that you steal
less competitive than any other countries.
Speaker 3 (26:53):
They have to pay more because of the tariffs.
Speaker 4 (26:55):
Oh that reminds me. Let me make a second point
that is obvious to economists but needs to be Some
people say, oh, just buy American steel.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
There is no American steel.
Speaker 4 (27:05):
There is American steel.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Oh.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
But the problem is if you're an American steel manufacturer
and your customer calls and says, I'd like to buy
some steel, you can say, well, you could either buy
from me or buy from those foreign guys. And if
you buy from those foreign guys, you have to pay
a twenty percent tariff. Right, all of a sudden, now
I realize I can jack up my price and you
don't have a better choiceh So when you say, oh,
just buy American, sure you can buy American, but I
(27:29):
guarantee you because steel is traded internationally, it's all the
price is going to get equalized. And so as a result,
the price of American steel goes up almost one for
one with a tariff. So it's not just imports that
become more expensive. It's also American steel, it becomes more expensive.
Speaker 3 (27:43):
Oh, that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
It's called in economics, by the way, the lore of
one price. When something is traded internationally, we at one
price around the world. Okay, now I want to tell
you why steel is a really really bad place for
what tariffs.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
No, because we're almost out a time, and I want
you to talk to us about how the Middle East
is going to affect the economy.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
Ryan has been fascinating and we all became experts on
the Iranian economy and it's been a terrific couple of
days learning about it. And a lot of people have said, oh,
that Trump is it's a master stroke in the Middle East,
and in some sense it is. It hasn't turned into bushes.
I raq nonsense.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Yeah, it's been like four days, but yes, And.
Speaker 4 (28:24):
I just want to remind you that as of today's Tuesday, Wednesday,
whatever day it is, I.
Speaker 3 (28:30):
Think it's Wednesday, we are now back.
Speaker 4 (28:32):
To exactly where we were seven days ago. The great
triumph is that he restored relations to where they had been.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
Right.
Speaker 4 (28:39):
If that stays, then basically nothing changes right right?
Speaker 3 (28:43):
Right?
Speaker 4 (28:44):
If that doesn't and Iran's oil production goes down. That's
not a big deal, right, because Iran is only two
or three percent of global production. The reason we've all
learned how to pronounce the Strait of Homus is because
that's this tiny little alley where all of the oil,
particular from Saudi Arabia goes through, but also the Emirates,
and so twenty percent of global oil goes through that.
(29:06):
So if Iran were to close that, that would be
a massive decline in the amount of oil available. Now,
realize the United States is basically is in fact energy independent,
So it's not that we're going to lose a lot
of money. But remember what I said a moment ago
about the law of one price. It's going to become
more expensive for oil, including American oil, right, And so Americans,
(29:28):
even though we're mostly buying American oil, are going to
be paying more if the straight up Homewars closes. So
that's the real problem is if there's a shock to
global oil supply, it's not going to be a big
shock to our income because again, remember we actually produce
more than we use. But it would be a shock
to prices, and so it could potentially have further effects
on inflation. But right now I am hopeful that our
(29:53):
steady and stable foreign policy will continue to reap incredible rewards.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Justin for adding a
bit of levity.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
That wasn't liberty, that was the stable foreign policy. Jesus
fucking Christ, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
David Daly is a senior fellow at Fair Vote and
the author of rat Fucked, Why Your Vote Doesn't Count.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
Welcome back to Fast Politics, David, Oh, it's good to
be here, Molly.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Let's talk about rank choice voting. I still don't understand
how it works.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
That's the truth.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Like I saw the election of Mary Paroda in Alaska
congresswoman for Alaska's one congressional seat Democrat one through ranked
choice voting. I saw we got Eric Adams. Nobody wanted
that through rank choice voting. But now we have mon Dannie,
who actually was leading in the polls and is reflective
(30:55):
of I think the voting. And this was after the
first round. So talk us through how rank choice voting
works place.
Speaker 5 (31:02):
Sure, Absolutely, rank choice voting really is an effective tool
to give voters more power anytime there's a race with
more than two candidates, whenever there's two candidates, it's all
pretty easy, right, you pick one or the other. Somebody
usually wins more than fifty percent of the vote, unless
there's a right end or you know, something silly. But
(31:22):
whenever you have more than two candidates, you have the
possibility of a spoiler, You have the possibility of a
split field, you have the possibility of a non majority winner.
And that is, you know, not a great thing. What
it does is it takes choice that voters want right.
(31:42):
Voters want to have lots of candidates in a race.
They want to be able to choose. But when you
can only pick one, it makes your life as a
voter exceptionally complicated. Look at New York City yesterday, where
you had a field of eleven mayoral candidates. If you
(32:03):
want to vote for somebody who your favorite candidate might
be fourth or fifth in the polls, So then you
have to decide, well, is it okay for me to
vote for this person who's fourth or fifth? By doing so,
am I really electing the person I like the least.
It's an impossible situation to be in, and you run
the risk of somebody winning with thirty five percent of
(32:24):
the vote or even less who everyone does not want.
So with rank choice voting, what you get to do
is put your choices in order. Every race is a
little bit different. In New York yesterday, you were able
to select your top five and you're able to say, well,
I want this person first, this person second, this person third.
(32:44):
It's a pretty common intuitive thing for most of us.
We can look at a race with lots of people
and you know, imagine how it would play out. Who
we like, who we don't like. And it works as
simple as this. If somebody wins more than fifty percent
in the round, they win, just like any other election.
But if nobody wins fifty percent in the first round,
(33:06):
the bottom candidates are eliminated. And what happens then is
if your candidate is still alive, your vote stays with them.
If your candidate is knocked out, it moves to your second,
third choice, and so on. The runoff process continues until
there is a majority winner. Really, what OURCV does is
(33:27):
it creates a majority winner from a huge field and
empowers voters to turn choice into something positive.
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Okay, so I want you to explain this rank choice
voting is supposed to And I say this because I
have really scrupulously avoided getting involved in the Democratic mayoral
primary for any number of reasons. But I'm curious ranked
choice voting it is advertised as electing the most centralized candidate.
(33:59):
Does that bear out from yesterday?
Speaker 5 (34:01):
No, I don't think that's right. I don't think RCV
does elect the most centrist candidate. I think it elects
the candidate with the broadest and widest support. And sometimes
that might be a centrist. But sometimes what we saw
in New York yesterday is it's a thirty three year
old Democratic socialist who has majority support. I mean, OURCV
(34:24):
has been used in Virginia to elect Glenn Youngkin. It
has been used in Alaska to elect everyone from Mary
Peltola to Nick Beggish to Lisa Murkowski. What RCV does
is it creates a majority winner, and it encourages candidates
to run more unifying campaigns. I would say that instead
(34:47):
of electing a centrist, really, what RCV does is it
elects somebody who goes out and talks to everyone. It
sets up different campaign incentives. If you can win a
race with thirty out of the vote, like you could
have in New York City prior to our CV, then
the kind of race that Andrew Cuomo ran makes a
(35:08):
lot more sense.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Right.
Speaker 5 (35:09):
He avoided the press, he avoided the public, He didn't
show up at a lot of panels to talk to people,
and he thought that his name recognition and money would
muscle him through to thirty eight or forty percent in
a divided field, and then you would have had a
mayoral nominee that sixty percent of people voted against, but
you would be the choice. Nevertheless, Mom Donnie campaigned in
(35:32):
a very different way right. He built bridges amongst the
entire left in liberal universe. He camp in with the
other candidates. You saw candidates campaigning together. You saw Mom
Donnie asking his supporters to help raise money for Adrian Adams.
(35:52):
You saw the alliances and the cross endorsements. When Mom
Donnie was at one percent in the polls back in March,
the Working Families Party, instead of endorsing one candidate and
coorinating somebody right, they endorsed a slate of four and
they allowed the campaign to play out. If there had
not been ranked choice voting, what you probably see in
(36:15):
New York City is that there would have been pressure
amongst the left liberal candidates to drop out of the
race to coalesce around one person, so that nobody spoiled
it or produced a winner with thirty five percent. Instead,
we got an actual campaign about actual issues. Nobody was
telling anyone to drop out of the race, and when
the actual issues were discussed and debated, you saw the
(36:39):
candidate at one percent catch fire. And the result is,
you know, a fairly seismic upset.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Yeah, you know, that's a really good point, and I
don't think I put that together. So what you're saying
is that rank choice voting means that it's not the
same kind of high stakes situation. So, for example, one
of the big problems we have in Congress, among other things,
and we have a lot of problems in Congress, and
I am here to tell you about them, but one
(37:05):
of the big problems we have in Congress is that
the name recognition does in fact muscle people through.
Speaker 3 (37:11):
I'm thinking of Tom Taylis.
Speaker 1 (37:13):
That you can sort of go for your forty one
percent or you're thirty nine percent, thirty nine and a
half percent, and with Democrats because they're polite and they
you know, if you're if you have seniority, you kind
of win because people you know. I mean, that's one
of the things that I've really been critical about in
for Democrats. So the thinking here is basically that because
(37:37):
you are ranking, you can keep a bigger field.
Speaker 5 (37:41):
You can keep a bigger field, you give voters more choice.
There's less pressure on candidates not to jump into a primary, right.
I mean, in a race like New York yesterday, people
would have been telling a candidate like Mom Dannie to
wait his turn. Instead, he's able to run without any
fear of being a spoil, spoiler tracting from other progressives
(38:03):
or liberals.
Speaker 3 (38:04):
In the race.
Speaker 5 (38:05):
There's a lot of really good uses for this, and
I think what you've identified in Congress is really right
on right. What we've seen in Congress is because so
many districts, as we've talked about on the show before,
have been gerrymandered so that one side or the other
wins in a lopsided fashion. The only competition for these
seats is in partisan primaries, and so what you often
(38:29):
get is a low turnout summer election that effectively determines
the race for everybody, because the winner of the primary
goes on guaranteed to November, and that is how you
end up with some of the most polarizing figures in Congress.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
Right a Marcherie Taylor Grand They.
Speaker 5 (38:47):
Won primaries with thirty five thirty six percent of the vote,
and then, because the district was so wired one way
or the other, they are effectively locked into a race.
And then because of the power of incumbency and name recognition,
they can hold on to it forever. Ranked voice voting
is an especially useful tool in party primaries, you know,
as it is in general elections, but really truly in
(39:11):
party primaries where eleven or twelve people are seeking the
same seat and somebody can win with a tiny plurality
of the vote, it's better for parties and it's better
for voters to use our CV.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
So where is our CV in getting adapted? Too different?
Speaker 1 (39:28):
I mean, what, first of all, the pushback on it? It's interesting,
So Virginia has our CV.
Speaker 5 (39:34):
Virginia Republicans have used our CV in their primaries. Wow,
that's wild, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (39:40):
Right?
Speaker 1 (39:41):
First of all, why have Virginia Republicans used it in
their primaries? Because I don't think of Republicans as and
May also has it, and Alaska, So explain to us
sort of how this gets adapted, and how this doesn't
get adapted, and what this looks like now, and why
did Republicans pick it in Virginia.
Speaker 5 (39:59):
Republic in Virginia picked it because they were looking at
a primary for governor in twenty twenty one that was
going to have four or five candidates in it, and
everybody was from a different ideological lane. Everybody was at
each other's throats, and they realized that OURCV would create
a different kind of race, that it would create a
race in which the candidate with the broadest and deepest
(40:22):
support one and it would be more unifying.
Speaker 4 (40:26):
You saw this in New York City yesterday.
Speaker 5 (40:28):
As well, right that Andrew Cuomo conceded that race, you know,
on day one, and we will see if he runs
as an independent or not. But it doesn't look off
of his statements yesterday that he's inclined to do so.
So you end up without the kind of nastiness and
bitterness that you have in a typical intra party primary.
(40:48):
What you would have had in Virginia in twenty twenty one,
what you would have had in New York over the
last couple of months, would have been candidates at each
other's throats, going deeply negative, essentially the other side talking
points or the fault to use against them, and just
you know, in general bitterness and anger inside the party.
Oh well, that that person took a nomination for right, but.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
That doesn't happen because you want to be ranked even
if you're not the first choice.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
Oh that's really interesting.
Speaker 5 (41:18):
You're less likely to go nuclear on the other folks, right.
I mean, if New York City was using a traditional
old school runoff, what you would have seen is all
of the Liberals fighting to be the second person going
up against Cuomo. Instead of campaigning together and finding common
(41:39):
ground with each other and showing up after Brad Lander
is arrested, they would have been at each other's throats,
and the Left in New York City would not have
been unified at all heading into this campaign. Instead, it's
a completely different race. Virginia Republicans say the exact same thing,
that they were able to produce a nominee. Nobody could
(42:01):
argue it because there was much more than fifty percent,
and they headed into the fall and they beat Terry mccauliffe, right,
they pulled off an upset nobody imagine you can compare
that to what happened in New Jersey's governor primary a
couple of weeks ago, right in which you had Mickey
Cheryl win that race, but with about thirty three thirty
four percent from a highly contested primary. Everybody went deeply
(42:26):
negative on each other for a weeks and weeks handed
Republicans talking points for the fall. New Jersey to be
a pretty safe state for Democrats, but Republicans set some
blood in the water. There's a lot of money in there.
Wouldn't it be better if for the Democrats if they
had come together around a nominee and they were using
(42:47):
these months to go after the other side rather than
try to heal those wounds internally.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
Yeah, why don't we do that?
Speaker 4 (42:54):
Well?
Speaker 5 (42:54):
I think we should, And I think what we're seeing
is more and more states and localities understand and the
benefits of this as more and more voters use it
and like it. There was a Common Cause pull back
in twenty twenty one in New York that shows something
like ninety one percent of voters found it easy to
use and liked it. I think that voters are going
(43:15):
to say, why don't we get to use this as well?
And why can't we use it? In every campaign. We're
going to be heading towards right a twenty twenty eight
presidential primary season sooner than anybody realizes, right, and there
could be huge fields on both sides. You had twenty
five Democrats back in twenty twenty four, seventeen Republicans back
(43:36):
in twenty sixteen. Imagine what an open race on both
sides brings out. And we could again see you know,
non majority nominees coming out, the kinds of choices Americans
get end up being being weakened. And you know, I mean,
all you have to do is look back at twenty
twenty in the Democratic primary, right, all those candidates, all
(43:57):
of them fighting with each other, elbowing each other out.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
Of providing for child that he is still using.
Speaker 5 (44:06):
Right, right, when Harris goes after Biden on bussing in
the twenty twenty Democratic debates, that's still a moment that
Republicans were using against her in the twenty for election.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Yeah, I mean, a very good and salient point. Right now,
where is rank choice voting?
Speaker 5 (44:25):
Rank choice voting is being used right now in Maine,
It's being used in Alaska, it is being used in
a number of cities nationwide. Whether it's New York, big
cities in Minnesota, big cities in California, Oakland, San Francisco.
But it is also being really widely used across Utah.
(44:46):
So it is happening in red states, it's happening in
blue states, it's happening in purple states. There is an
awful lot of momentum around this because voters recognize it
as a tool that delivers them something they really want,
more choice, but also ensures that that choice doesn't become complicated,
(45:07):
and it guarantees a majority winner. So it encourages bigger, broader,
more issue based campaigns. And what we see is everywhere
it's being used, voters like it, want to expand it,
and I think we're going to continue to see even
more of them.
Speaker 3 (45:25):
Thank you, thank you, thank you, David, thank you, Molly.
A moment.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
Jesse Cannon Bally, a whistleblower, is alleging that Trump's DOJ
told lawyers to disobey court orders. And you'll be really
shocked to hear this about who was leading that charge,
amulbo Yes, well, Bali, could you catch the listeners up
For those who forget this fellow's name, war per ops
(45:56):
confuse him with like a guy with a creole restaurant
in New Orleans or something.
Speaker 3 (46:00):
Thing Bove is bad, Bov is real bad.
Speaker 1 (46:05):
So, by the way, so Bob is up for a judgeship.
And that's why some of this is coming out. This
whistleblower who was fired by both for refusing to do
some of this stuff he wanted. So the guy who
was fired was a career a justice partman lawyer who
was fired fired after truthfully staying in court that the
(46:26):
administration had wrongfully removed Kilmar Albrego Garcia. You'll remember him
from earlier this season when he was deported to Seacott
and then the Trump administration said they couldn't find him,
and then they said they wouldn't bring him back, and
then they said, by the way, I just want to
point out they're spending so much money and time on
one person, like even just besides the moral and ethical
(46:51):
implications of just deporting people because they have they look
like a race you're mad at. Even despite the moracle
and ethical issues here, it's just a stupid fucking waste
of time, right, I mean, this guy, it would it's
just I mean, it's you know, millions of dollars being
(47:11):
spent on this guy, and it's just insane anyway. So
Bob Trump has nominated him for a seat on the
US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. And now
we have this whistleblower who's coming out and saying that
Bob said things like we might need to consider telling
the courts to fuck you and ignore any court order.
(47:33):
I mean, look, we know this was going on behind
the scenes, but it's certainly nice to have someone report it.
Todd Blanche, She'll remember Todd Blanche. He's the deputy Attorney
general and he was also Donald Trump's criminal lawyer, because
Donald Trump only knows four people. The New York Times
article describes falsehoods purportedly made by a disgruntled former employee
(47:56):
and elite to the press in a violation of ethical obligations.
Says Blanche, he actually wrote that on Twitter. Again. Obviously
both did this. Obviously Todd Blanche is lying. Has anyone
seen this White House? You know? If it's anything like
one point, Oh, they're going to be a bazillion memoirs
of people who tried to work in the White House
(48:21):
and got traumatized by Trump. I mean, I can't believe
we're still fucking covering this. 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
(48:41):
of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast, please
send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
Thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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