August 9, 2025 • 50 mins
Substack’s Ken Klippenstein examines the time the FBI paid him a visit. The Brennan Center’s Michael Waldman details their new report on how Trump is trying to rig the midterms with a number of extreme proposals.
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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 CNN's Harry Enton says jd Vance
is most likely to be the GOP nominee in twenty
twenty eight.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
We have such a great show for you today. Substacks
owned Ken Klippenstein stops by to talk to us about
the time the FBI showed up at his door. Then
we'll talk to the Brennan Center's own Michael Waldman about
the Brennan Center's report on how Trump is trying to
rig the midterms with a number of insane proposals.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
But first the news Somali Trump's team is picking a
fight with a big boy.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
I don't think they should mess with it because he's
way smarter than them.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
He's smarter, he's richer, and he's tougher, and he's also
just gonna win Governor Pritzker. Donald Trump very mad anyone
who dare disobey his insane cryptocracy. Basically, the White House
had a project to keep invasive fish out of the
(01:10):
Great Lakes. Installed Why Donald Trump cares about invasive fish?
I mean, my man doesn't believe climate change is real.
But you know, the point is he's using something to
blame pritz Gart.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
When I heard about this, I thought this was like
the plot of the South Park episode the other night,
like like an invasive fish, Like, what the hell is
going on here?
Speaker 5 (01:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
I mean, look, I think it's important to take a
minute here to talk about South Park.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
I watched last night. Was amazing.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
I can't believe I think South Park is amazing in
twenty twenty five, but it was amazing.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
They did a great job.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
South Park is the new CNN. I think we should
all agree that the White House Press Corps dreams of
doing as good a job of summing up this White
House as South Park. Thank you Trey and Matt for
doing what the mainstream media cannot narrating our downfall into kryptocracy.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Personally, I never thought i'd be spiling while dogs get shot.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yes, you're giving it away. And by the way, let
me just say, if you don't think that Matt and
Trey are going to end up in Seacott or Alligator Alcatraz,
you are wrong, because Christy Nome has Actually, I think
she responded to the episode numerous times.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
In fact, as did mister j Dvantz pretending he's hit
on the joke when he very much is not.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Yeah, you know, you really see how much politics is
downstream of culture and how the culture does in fact dictate,
and South Park is a great example of that. They
have really just nailed it in a way that is
important and also accurate.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Yeah, you make a great point, like too much the
character it doesn't resemble the actual person charactered, and this
really is like just dead on showing what.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
They are like.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
It's actually weirdly more accurate because there's so much anxiety
about all of the lawsuits and ways in which different
groups have been targeted, and that anxiety has really worked
to silence a lot of us. So to watch Matt
and Trey just go after it, I mean, Bravo team.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Speaking of that, there's actually been some really interesting pushbacks
from journalists this week going much harder on politicians. This
one you flagged for me, I think is really really
great with.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
You, Nancy Mace, that was really that was really great.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
But this is Joe Scarborough versus Mike Waller, one of
the biggest lying liars there is in our congressional body,
which is really saying something.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
Let me play it for you.
Speaker 6 (03:39):
Well, respectfully, Mike. The Congressional Budget Office, which obviously is
part of the institution where you serve, says that it
should be about nine hundred billion to one trillion dollars
in Medicaid cuts. If you look at the hospitals in
your own district, Modi forty Nayak Hospital is already saying
(04:03):
because of that vote, because of these cuts, they're going
to have to cut back services, They're going to have
to cut staff, they're going to have to cut care.
Same thing with Westchester Hospital. Hospitals across your district are
going to have to cut services and care and staff
members and budgets because of your vote and because of
(04:25):
this bill that passes. That's what they're saying. It's not
some left wing focus. Well, I'm just telling you what
they what they've said. Uh.
Speaker 7 (04:38):
And so what they're what you're parroting, what they're parenting
is the same talking points being put out by the state.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Uh.
Speaker 8 (04:45):
And you one to know their business matter.
Speaker 6 (04:49):
You know, you know their business better than they know
their business. Conferenceman, you can keep talking if you want to,
But are you saying that they know you know their business?
Speaker 8 (05:00):
You know doctor's business.
Speaker 6 (05:02):
You know hospital administrator's business better than they know their
own business. Is that what you're telling us here.
Speaker 7 (05:08):
No, Joe, if you'd stop putting words in my mouth
and let me answer the.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Question, awesome, Yeah, awesome, awesome, awesome.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
More of that, especially because he's one of the main
people who knows that the journalists won't push background, so
he whis his ass off. He is one of the
worst in the business at it.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that is such an incredible piece of
pushing back. And also you see like they just don't
have an answer, and it's really why we have to
when you're interviewing these people, you have to do it
so molly.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
As we know, Democrats have fled Texas to not allow
quorum and you know who's big Matt, Texas Governor Greg ABBITTT.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yeah. Look, they're threatening a lot to do a lot
of stupid crap. But the reality is breaking quorum is
not breaking the law. This is a sort of civil
Texas and not an illegal, illegal thing. And despite the
fact that John Cornyn called in for the FBI and
Cash is making noise to make noise, this is not right,
(06:11):
like they are representing their district and in fact, Trump
one fifty six percent of the votes in Texas in
twenty twenty four, which means that redistricting would in fact
make it so that Republicans controlled I don't know one
hundred percent of the seats.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
Hm, it's not a representative of democracy.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
I think what Democrats are doing here is really good
and really smart, and I also think that they should
keep it going, and I don't think they should go back.
There's some talk that maybe a Paxton an Abbott will
try and call another special session, but you know, they
could just stay. Like, there is no reason that those
Democrats have to go back. I mean, obviously it sucks
(06:51):
for them not to be at home, but like this
matters more. This is like they're morally correct, they're politically
on the right side of history. And the more that
this builds, the more attention it gets, the better served
everyone who is on this side of democracy is these
Texas state reps are doing God's work and they need
(07:11):
to keep doing it, and we need to keep telling
them they're doing the right thing, because like this is
undermining our democracy in a big, big way. Kenklippenstein is
the author of the substack of the same name. Welcome
to fast politics.
Speaker 5 (07:29):
Ken, Hey, go to be back with you.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
I was saying before this that I feel like you're
the troublemaker I dream of being, and you are getting
into you'll excuse the cliche, here some good trouble. So
you have run a foul of the cash Patel FBI,
and I would love for you to start with this
story because it's amazing.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
Yeah, you're talking about the nihilistic, violent extremist story.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Well, I would love you to start with when they
visited you, Like, I feel like there's a there's a
long character r about car. Yeah, start with how the
FBI came to recognize you.
Speaker 5 (08:07):
Okay, So the JD Vance vetting documents called the dossier.
I feel like that elevates it a little bit higher
than it should, because really what it was was the
Trump campaigns just looking at different potential candidates for VP
prior to when they picked Senator then Senator Vance and
just listing out his liabilities and so you know, when
I had this described me it ultimately sent to me
by it was hacked by the Ran government and said
(08:31):
I said that in the story so we could know yep,
and that's what precipitated the FBI visit because I thought, well,
you know, back during Clinton they'd published this stuff, and
in this case, I look at it and there's no
question that it's factual. If there was any question that
it was factual, I would approach it differently. But it's
all just open source stuff that you can go and verify.
(08:51):
So I would, you know, I would feel bad just
putting out like say, for instance, the Steele dossier has
all these sensational claims that you can't really vet. So
it's like I would feel bad post something like that.
But like in the case of just open stories stuff
on like his votes, on his comments on Trump in
the past, just like explicitly political stuff. So I thought, well,
why shouldn't this be out there as long as you
explain to people the providence and let them come to
(09:13):
their own conclusion so that they're not seeing that, you know,
like the Uranians put this out there, they obviously have
their set of reasons for doing so, you know, make
of that what you will. And so that's what I did.
And about two weeks later, I got a visit from
a pencil neck, very young FBI special agent who looked
like he might have tripped on his himbilical cord on
the way here, because he was just so such a youngster,
(09:36):
a nice guy, and he he introduced himself, you know,
counter intelligence officer, blah blah blah. And so he's he
reads me a written statement that he kind of opens
up from his pocket. It's all very robotic and sort
of stiff, and he's even sort of admitting. He's like, yeah,
this is a little weird. I don't think the fbis
necessarily should be always interacting with the media like this.
(09:56):
But you know, I got sent here by Washington, so
I got to read you the statement. So he says,
you were the recipient of an Iranian government and then
I kind off I said, yeah, I said that the story.
He goes, you did I said, yeah, did you read it?
He says no, he said when did you publish it?
And I'm thinking to myself, this guy didn't even read
the thing he's visiting to brief me on.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
So you just read the headline. I feel like this
is a great example of someone just re reading the
headline exactly.
Speaker 5 (10:18):
So he says, how long would you publish it? I said, ah,
about two weeks ago, And I joked I was like,
I thought you guys were going to consumer because I
knew there would be a risk of something like this
happening because of the politics involved. And he says, he says,
two weeks that's pretty fast for the federal government, and
so we're laughing about it. So the whole thing had
this kind of kaugh Cask quality to it where he
knew it was absurd. I knew it was absurd. He
knew I knew it was absurd. So anyways, and then
(10:40):
he leaves, Fortunately nothing happens, and then I got a
second visit when I published the Manifesto of the Israel
Embassy shooter in Washington several weeks ago, not to glorify him,
and I very explicitly in the story say this is
a terrible thing to have happened. And it wasn't a
positive story. I talk about his Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
How do you get that that was leaked t L Yes, Okay, yeah,
go on.
Speaker 5 (11:03):
So, so you know, in the story, I describe some
of his personal problems and like kind of awful things
he did to his friends. Like, I don't think anyone
could look at that and say, this person who's glorifying
what happened. I'm trying to tell what happens, that we
understand what led up to this moment, and hopefully you
can prevent the next one. So any case, I write
that story, put it out there, the response is pretty positive.
I thought it was going to be more angry, and
(11:24):
so there wasn't much backlash until the FBI visit literally
I think it was the next day, and this time
it was much more aggressive than the first time. It
was two older special agents that start saying, how did
you get this? Why do you have this? And it's like,
you know, I can't tell them who I got it from,
but you know, you can guess that after something like
this happens, this stuff is people are, you know, sending
(11:46):
it around and so it's like pretty straightfward explanation. But
D had this whole theory that, oh, did you have
fore knowledge? I didn't have four knowledge of it. I
found out the words like everyone else.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah, that wouldn't make any sense. I guess that's the
only button they can press on that. But people, really,
I mean releasing a manifesto, I mean there's a precedent
for that too, right.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
Yeah, totally. To me, it's not about do you publish
or now, it's how do you publish it? What kind
of context do you include?
Speaker 4 (12:15):
Are you?
Speaker 5 (12:15):
Are you like it's a legitimate question, I ask, like,
don't glorify it. But there's all kinds of ways you
can talk about something. You can talk about it from
the perspective of are there other people have these attitudes
or something like this might happen? Are the things we
can do to prevent or to kind of rebut these
belief systems that lead people to do something like this,
and so all of that I think is like a
more healthy response to it, rather than sticking your head
in the sand and being like, we're not going to
(12:37):
talk about this because it's bad thing, and if people
see it, they're just gonna, like the masuring candidate, just
stand up and carry out order. It's like, people don't
work that way. I have a higher respect for the
public than evidently the FBI does.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
So what about talk to us about this? Nihil is this? Yeah?
Talk to us about this?
Speaker 5 (12:55):
Yeah? Really?
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (12:56):
A third next chapter of this story. Yeah, So they
have a new threat category the FBI that I first
reported based on court documents that I found. I saw
this phrases like wait, I've never seen this before. I
pay very close attention to The FBI has all kinds
of different designations for threat actors. This is a completely
new and nihilistic violent extremist. So I look it up
and start talking to some special agent. I have some
(13:17):
friends at FBI. I don't want to give the impression
that across the board there were good people in all
sorts of agencies, including that one, right, And so I
asked them about it, and they basically tell me, oh,
this is the new thing from Washington. Basically it's going
to shift attention away from the white supremacist groups and
the January sixth style stuff that they were focused on
under the previous administration, and that carries with it. It's
a cold on a second, you just did this and
(13:38):
there's no public debate about like that. Were like, first
of all, what even is that? And I'll get into
that in a second. A second, is it okay to
let this replace and supplant these other categories that they've
been using for years and years? And is this going
to mean that there's a politicized component to how they're
going after these things? And so if you look at
the definition, the definition is consistent. They're like they believe
nothing and so I start looking through and there's some
(14:00):
stomach turning cases. I don't want to minimize how awful
it is some of the groups that they're going after
what they do, but to call them nihilist just erases
their politics. In some cases they're neo Nazis. That's not nihilists,
that's a belief system.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Yes, but let me just push back on that. Isn't
it good that they're still going after neo Nazis?
Speaker 5 (14:19):
Oh definitely. I'm not saying that they shouldn't.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Just like I was worried that they had stopped doing
that stuff because they were like, these are our guys.
Speaker 5 (14:27):
My concern isn't that they're going after people committing crimes.
Absolutely do that, particularly neo Nazis. My problem is that
when you designate it something, then at the end of
the year, in their own internal data and what they
brief to Congress and how what informs their priorities going forward,
they're going to say, ooh, there was an increase in
Nihilsic violent extremists. And what they're going to see also
is suddenly, oh, look at that Neo Nazi extremism went
(14:48):
down because you've reclassified it under a different category. That's
my concern is it's not It doesn't seem to me
to be the appropriate category for what's going on.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Right no question. I mean, that's for sure true. So
I would love you to sort of talk to me
about what you kind of think the national security landscape
looks like at this moment, because you have Cash Batal
and Dan Bongino at the FBI. You have, I mean,
you just have so many, so much weirdness happening there.
(15:19):
I'm wondering if you could, yeah, talk us through what
you think it looks, what these agencies look like right now.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (15:25):
It's kind of ironic because Trump is trying to relitigate
somebody having a decade ago Russia Gate and talking about
the declassification of some of these records, which I'm not
necessarily against, but it's like so long ago. And the
biggest irony here is he's talking about how politicized that
that whole thing was, which I in part can can
see why he didn't like it and what his christims are,
but then he's responding to it with this overtly politicized administration. Yes,
(15:50):
everything he says is like, you know, call me and
Hillary Clinton and the Democrats in Obama, It's like, are
you kidding? I thought you said that you didn't like
the politicization, so you're going to bond a fire with
fire and it just doesn't make any sense. And if
you look at the individual guys, I've been amazed at
how much lack of vision in some ways there is
because it is politicized, and they have this list of enemies,
but it feels so dated, like who's thought about any
(16:13):
of these names in ten years? And you know what
I mean, It's like they're living in twenty sixteen. And
then in addition to that, their ideas for the Bureau,
this is very interesting. Initially the Trump proposed cuts to
the bureau cash bat push back and said we actually
need more money. I think what ended up happening at
appropriations is they end up giving them that more money.
So the kind of promise of shrinking the quote unquote
(16:33):
deep state has just completely fallen by the wayside. And
I don't think I don't think there's much appreciate. I mean,
the paradox I think is most evident in the in
the Epstein case, where they make all these lofty promises
and then you see the Justice Department review, which if
you read it carefully, has a sent incident that says
Epstein had over a thousand victims, which suggests like, that's
a that's more than I would have, that's more than
(16:54):
we knew publicly before that prosecutor said it was something
in the dozens. I thought it was two hundred. That's
what they previously it said. And then in the final review,
based on the documents and whatever, it's like, Okay, so
there's something bigger here. I don't know exactly what, but
like it's not unreasonable for people to say all those
guys and just these two people did all of that.
So but the administration is like pretending like nothing happened.
(17:16):
They're just like, oh, what are you talking about? There's
nothing there. It's like you just talked. You were just
gas people up about this for the last eight years.
So they're in this position where they have to deliver
on demands for their base because they've failed in these
different ways, like I'm talking about like the fbid budget,
the Ebstein investigation, and that makes me nervous because it's like, well,
how are they going to do that? And then you
have these deployments to Los Angeles, you have the militarized
(17:36):
FBI where they're blurring people's faces and public press releases.
So it's like, I think they're under pressure to look
like they're changing something, doing something.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Yeah, I want to go into Ebstein because it's just fascinating.
So the polling for like releasing the Ebstein files is
like eighty percent. Like all Americans, they don't necessarily believe
in God, they don't believe in Santa Claus, they don't
believe in climate change, but they do believe that they
want to see those fucking files. And I feel like
what's important about this story is it's a story about
(18:05):
the base and not a story about you know, like
it's one thing for people on CNN to be like,
this is beyond the pale, but this is Trump. These
are the people who put Trump in there. This is
the Marjorie Taylor Greens. So do you think they're stay
still feeling the same way, because I know, like Charlie
Kirk and some of Trump's people have been like no, no,
(18:26):
you know, but do you think there's still that ground
swell number one and number two? Like what could they
theoretically even do?
Speaker 5 (18:36):
Yeah, So you have to distinguish between the parts of
the base that are like the influencers that are kind
of like pushing Trump's agenda, and then just the ordinary voters.
I would say the influencer class has largely been bought.
If you look at like Charlie Kirk, he goes on
his show and says, I'm done talking about Epstein for now.
I'm going to quote this is a direct quote. I'm
going to trust my friends in government. It's like, wait,
I thought you were a conservative. The hell's frozen over
(18:59):
that they got to can trust the government? It was yeah.
And and then just to give you another example, there
was Denesh Desuza him saying, oh, yeah, we got to
move on and focus on other things. But if it's
very interesting, if you look at the base, they're not
having it, or at least when I looked at it
this past couple of weeks, they were like, what are
you talking about? This was one of your promises. And
you know that the cash Betel talked about it repeatedly.
(19:20):
And so I'm honestly sort of sympathetic to the base.
Not that I have the same interpretation of what Epstein
means that they do, but they're right. They were promised
something and they haven't been given anything close to it.
It was like a two page Justice Department review and
a thousand victims. There's got to be a little bit
more at least, right, So that's kind of my perspective
on it. And it's interesting too because it parallels a
(19:40):
collapse in the public support for the deportation regime. If
you look at the polling right now, it's gone like
straight down. So I wonder if Epstein is actually symptomatic
of a deeper dissatisfaction with the administration. But that's an
acceptable way to express it because you're not going to
come out and say, oh, actually immigration, I'm okay, you're
going You've got to sub media through something else, you
(20:01):
know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
I'm that's just really an interesting No, that's an interesting theory,
and I hadn't. I mean, they're definitely there's something like
the bottom has fallen out on Trump's support, So that
makes a lot of sense that this would be a
sort of palpable way to express it. I'm going to
push you for a minute, just because I'm this is
like my own edification here more than anything. What do
(20:23):
you think is in there that like I always just
assumed and we're just get we're just spitballing here. So
this is not cable news like we can just we're
just making guesses here. So but like I always assumed
they went into the files saw there was nothing, maybe
that Epstein had done some like low level government participation
(20:46):
with certain stuff, you know, not like a high level
CIA guy, but just someone who you know, they CIA
has people who just sort of push on other people
but aren't really like in it the same way, say
like whatever is I mean? And that they just were like,
it's all you know, stuff that implicates some celebrities or
(21:08):
wealthy people, and also just nothing that makes anyone look good.
But I mean, do you think there's more than that
in there?
Speaker 5 (21:16):
I think that there needs to be more nuanced and
how Epstein is a figure and how the intelligence community
is characterized, because when people say, oh, was he an asset,
they don't understand that there's different like levels of relationships
that exist, right these agencies, Like it takes almost nothing
to just fill out a confidential human source report and
say hey, here's what somebody said. That doesn't mean that
you're like meeting with them and paying them and directing
(21:38):
them or anything. They processed. Just to give you another example,
I was just we're gonna sorry about this. The CIA
has a program called the National Resource Agency, I think
it's called, and where they just process interviews of Americans
coming back travelers coming back over abroad from countries of
interests in CIA. So say you've traveled to I don't know,
Russia or Ukraine or North career for whatever reason, and
(21:58):
then they say, oh, what did you see there? What
was the you know, did you see any weapons here
in this town or something? And this is a routine
thing that they probably do thousands and thousands of people
just intake. And it's like, so that's not an asset relationship.
You don't fill something out, you're not being tasked with things.
It's just them asking a couple of things when they
come back in, and it's like, that's the low level
of association that I would expect to come out if
(22:21):
they if just because Epstein knew everybody. And that's another
part of this thing I think people are not entirely
honest about, which is that this guy was an almost
pathological collector of people in relationships and he just loved
being around important people. That doesn't mean that he was
like like, we probably all have this friend that's like,
look at this photo I have of so and so
famous person, you know what I mean. And it's like, okay,
(22:43):
I'm sure that you kind of took a picture with
him for a second and said hi, Like that doesn't
mean that there's some sustained relationship there. So that to
me is some of the nuance I'd like to see
in this is like, Okay, yes he had an they
say Epstein associate, like you and I and are associate
right now, because you know what I mean, It's like,
it doesn't mean that there's some deep financial relation so
(23:03):
he did.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Yeah, that's your take too, is that he just was
sort of knew everybody is in photos.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
Let's be real. The guy was a con man, and
he went around telling people that he has at these
connections and it's very much as interest to do so
because then he can dine out on these names. Is
that I know Bill Clinton, I know so and so on?
But who really knows what that means? You can't trust someone, right,
an inveterate liar.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Right, so just a con man, like he just was
good at conning people out of money, right, and also
blackmailing them.
Speaker 5 (23:32):
I have kind of a nuanced position on this, which
is that I don't like when the major press just says, oh,
this whole thing is a conspiracy theory because the attitude
and the part of the public to look at this
and see, Okay, there's a lot of influential people here
and they seem okay with this world of whatever, all
these young women. That's an appropriate reaction to this. This
is kind of like a me too thing.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
I think definitely is.
Speaker 5 (23:55):
And so but that's different than he's cavorting with. You know,
the CI is sending him here to target this guy.
That's just a high society tolerating grossness thing, and that's
bad and something should be done about that. And it's
appropriate that people feel that something should be done about that.
But it's different, I think, than something more, something more
conscious or planned out, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
So that's what I think it is, too, is that,
like you know, the Weinstein stuff, it's like disgusting sexual malfeasance, rape,
harassment of children, women who are between the ages of
fourteen and eighteen, which is insane, but that it's not
(24:37):
a sort of larger like you know, Seria is doing
this to get this.
Speaker 5 (24:44):
To get that Donald Trump the president. Now, I don't
know if anyone knew. Is on record in New York
Daily News. I think in the two thousand.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Thin York Magazine two say the joys beautiful women as
much as I do, some of them are the many
of them are on the younger.
Speaker 5 (25:01):
Isn't that bad enough? I mean, that's it, That's what
the conspiracy, That's what the thing is here. That's bad
enough that these guys look the other way on this stuff.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
I think that the fundamental important element here is that
that is bad enough, that the fact that he was
going around with teenage girls is bad enough. And in fact,
he was on the sex predator there's like a sex
predator registrary as sex offender registry, and Jeffrey Epstein was
(25:34):
on it after two thousand and five, you know, and
it was like his house, like on the map, you
could see it. And I remember actually looking up and thinking, oh, yeah,
there's that rich guy who everyone knows is a sex predator.
But for some reason it has avoided punishment this.
Speaker 5 (25:52):
Whole time, right, And that's where I hesitate to have
the reaction that some quarters of kind of elite opinion
have with are just like ew, this UFO style conspiracy stuff.
It's like, no, there's something there. Even if it's not
it's the extreme.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
It's also like it's Weinstein, right, It's like, you know,
these people are doing something bad and you don't exactly
know what it is, but you know, I mean I
think it's you know, and you know, and you don't
go to dinner at their house.
Speaker 5 (26:21):
Because his brand, he was kind of supposed to be
the playboy ish guy who fucks and his hanging out
like you can't tell me they didn't have some ink,
Like come on, you know that's basically my position is,
come on, like this does not reflect well. I mean,
Noam Chowsky met with this guy, I think after the conviction,
and this is somebody that loves yeah and said, you know,
(26:43):
he did his time, and it's kind of like that's
something that should be an attitude shift, like yeah, yeah,
Like I guess they don't necessarily need to be like
exiled to an island, but there should be some attitude
of like, Okay, has this person changed at all or
no one seems to care about that and in the
kind of highnxiety.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
I mean, we're out of time, but I want to
quote the great Jesse Cannon, who just said to me,
producer Jesse, who does not get a lot of respect
on this podcast because I give him a very hard time,
but he was the one who said, no one is
ever canceled. That cancelation is like bullshit that these people
always are able to whether it. So, if you are
(27:23):
a sex predator of children, you should be canceled. I
think we should go out and that should be like
a bumper sticker.
Speaker 5 (27:30):
And that's what this is all about. If the public
hadn't had the outcry that it did, he would have
gotten off with the brief sentence he had and he'd
be back doing the same thing he was doing. And
that's why people don't trust the system, because I think,
we'll look how you handled it last time. I honestly
empathize with even the most extreme conspiraence miney people because
I get why they don't trust them anymore. They really
did blow this the first time around.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
And many many other things too. Ken. I hope you
will come back. Michael Waldman is the president end of
the Brennan Center for Justice. Welcome to past violand Michael Waldman.
Speaker 8 (28:05):
It's great to be with you again. Mollie.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
So you've head the Brandan Center for Justice, which is
extremely important legal resource you provide towards You provide all
of the work the NEAT for many of the nonprofits
that protect our democracy. You guys have a truly harrowing
report about the midterms and the Trump administration's plan for them.
(28:34):
Can you talk us through it? And first, I would
love you to talk just like before you even start
talking us through it, just explain to us a little bit,
just like a quick refresher on what Brennan does and
where you are in this process.
Speaker 5 (28:49):
Sure.
Speaker 8 (28:50):
So we are a non partisan law and policy institute.
We work to strengthen, to reform and when necessary, to
defend the systems of democracy and justice in this country.
So they worked for everybody, and so as you can imagine,
this is an intense time given how much assault there
is on our democracy and a lot of the details,
(29:11):
a lot of the arcane stuff turns out to matter
a lot. And so we're part of mostly a thank tank,
also an advocacy group and a communications hub, and we're busy,
and you know, it really feels in a lot of ways,
like in the last week or two that the twenty
twenty six midterms have kind of swung into view as
(29:33):
the looming next year of political activity in this country.
And the key thing is voters in our democracy have
to have the final say, and they have to have
the final say in twenty twenty six. And in the
last several elections, there were a lot of pressures on
the election system, from COVID to violence, but the system held.
Election officials from both parties worked well together and the
(29:56):
elections were accurate and safe and secure. But now, as
our new analysis shows, there's a new factor that we've
not had before, which is the federal government itself as
a threat to the elections, a concerted campaign by the
Trump administration to undermine the twenty twenty six elections. And
(30:19):
some of this stuff is well known, more or less.
Some of it is kind of under the radar, but
it clearly is adding up to a concerted campaign. And
in this new analysis that we published this week, we
connect the dots.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
So the first thing is very well known, which is
that Trump is trying to re gerrymander states in time
for the midterms, and that he's even said, for example,
he said in Texas that he was entitled to five
more seats, So talk us through that because I feel
like that's the first part of the story.
Speaker 8 (30:52):
Yeah, it is. And interestingly that came up so recently
and so abruptly. It's not in this report, but there's
no question that this is. There's a lot going on
and that's visible now. Our report, as great as it is,
doesn't have people, you know, hiding them in by the interstate.
That thing of leaving Austin to avoid a quorum on
(31:13):
jerrymandering is this is not actually the first time that's
happened in Texas. This is kind of a bit of
a tradition. We want Congress to be representative. Jerrymandering has
been bad throughout American history. It's a bad thing for
politicians to choose the voters rather than the other way around.
What is happening in Texas is particularly egregious. It is
just being explicitly done to squeeze five seats out for
(31:36):
the Republicans. It's at the expense of, very often of
voters of color. It's being done under the orders of
someone who doesn't live in Texas, Donald Trump, and it's
in the middle of the decade. Remember the census happens
every ten years. And that's when you're supposed to draw
the district lines. So it's a big fight that the
Democrats have left the state to avoid a quorum. The
(31:56):
Republican leadership of the state is trying to have them arrested.
I don't think that's going to work. It's not a
surprise that the Democrats in blue states are readying a
response or are responding accordingly, and I don't think we
should be surprised by that. I don't think it's a
good thing ultimately for the country to have this kind
of arms race. So the final answer, I think it's
(32:17):
really important that we never lose sight of the following.
The answer has to be ultimately national standards that apply
to red states and blue states alike. And you know,
the Supreme Court was going to do this and then
backed out and said that federal courts cannot police parties
and jerrymandering, but Congress could do it. The Freedom to
(32:38):
Vote Act, which you've heard me rant about, came really
close to passage two years ago. It would ban jerry
mandering nationwide in red states and in blue states and
bar mid decade redistricting. In other words, if it had
become law, this would not be happening. And it's really
(32:58):
critical that politicians who talk about democracy, who like to
give speeches about democracy being under threat, that when they
get their hands on the levers of power, do something
about protecting democracy. Unrigged the system just as enthusiastically and
energetically as some other politicians are rigging the system. So
that's that piece of it, and you know you're going
(33:20):
to see this play out in a bunch of states.
California is considering putting a new map on the ballot
in November because the Redistrict and Commission was created not
by Democrats but actually by voters and by Governor Schwarzenegger
backing it. He's a Republican. And in other states like
Illinois and New York and Maryland, again the Democrats are
(33:42):
looking to effect, you know, fight fire with fire. But
ultimately the answer is national standards, I think. But that's
only part of the story. Rights about voting and how
and the threats to the voting system with a little
less drama are really important and unnerving.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
So that is what I wanted to talk about next.
So in this report, you have a bunch of different
issues that the federal government is trying to mess with
elections with and I would love you to talk about
this attempting to rewrite election rules and interfere with election
administration by executive order, because executive orders they don't have
(34:20):
a ton of legal weight. It's more like just you know,
they're not it's not real, but it's real if the
Supreme Court will allow it to stand.
Speaker 8 (34:29):
So very often we're like a malevolent press release.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Exactly, malevolent press release. I'm writing that down. That's very sark.
Speaker 8 (34:37):
So the key thing to start is to remember that
under the law and under the constitution, states run elections,
and the Congress can pass laws setting national standards, but
the executive branch and especially the president, has almost no
role in these elections under normal circumstances. So it's just
Trump's impersonal attempts to seize control over the election system
(35:01):
at all is its own form of an egregious breach.
Among the things that are part of this kind of
concerted strategy is an executive order. As you said, that
was one of gazillions, and so it was easy to
lose sight on that required would require, if it were
to go into effect, you to show a passport to
(35:21):
register to vote in the United States under the federal form,
which you know half of all Americans don't have a passport.
It wouldn't even allow a birth certificate, as problematic as
that is. You need to have a passport or something
like that. What the Trump White House has done as
well is purge the election security officials and agencies that
(35:47):
have been doing a good job of helping states protect
their elections. It is requiring trying to require states to
turnover voter data to DOGE because you know what, could
ye find the fraud just like they found all those
non existent frauds whatever security And according to the Associated Press,
(36:09):
in the last few days, nineteen states already have gotten
demands or requests from the Justice Department for their voter records.
So this is happening. The whole of the federal government
is being sort of weaponized in this way. And of course,
as you know, Trump himself went to the Justice Department,
spoke to the cheering attorneys who he had appointed there
(36:33):
and said, I want you to prosecute election officials. Yeah,
and it's a whole gearing up of the prosecution mechanisms
to threaten these election officials. And when you think about
what happened in twenty twenty. You know, it was a
handful of Republican very often officials at different levels of
government who, whatever they might have done wrong or right,
(36:55):
other realms of their work stood up. Whether it was
Brad Raffensberger, the Secretary of State of Georgia, who you
know wouldn't quote find eleven thousand votes, or Attorney General
bar who told Trump that this is that it was
a Barnard epithet, that his claims that were bs. So
(37:17):
you know, now the administration is stocked with election deniers.
So all of this adds up to something new. We
haven't had this before in this country. To have the
old federal government weigh in put some on the scale
in this way.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
So you have the executive orders, and then you have
what's happened in I think it's already happened in Wyoming,
right where some red states are mandating proof of whatever.
Speaker 8 (37:43):
Well, you know, some states are trying to have done
it and actually backed off doing it because it turned
out it disenfranchised so many eligible voters, including.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Yeah, Trump voters too, because Trump has us low frequency.
Speaker 8 (37:56):
There's a reason why states don't do this, and yeah,
now you know, so there's a lot of this goes
back to this conspiracy theory that there's lots of non
citizens who are voting, and it's just not it's not true.
And states have very robust systems in place to make
sure that only citizens are voting, only citizens should vote.
But that good news is only citizens basically do.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
Vote, and there's very little evidence of non citizens voting.
Speaker 8 (38:21):
Yeah, and you know people, I you know as you can.
We have found when we make these arguments to people
publicly that it's less effective to point out that it
doesn't happen or that it's illegal already many times over
could but but but more that the states take this
really seriously and have a lot of safeguards in place
(38:45):
to prevent cheating of that kind.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
So executive orders, and then one of the scarier ones
is messing with the machine, the election of quote. So
talk us through that.
Speaker 8 (38:57):
So if you remember, one of the key things Trump
tried to do in twenty twenty was to seize the
voting machines. I don't know what that would have told him,
but the executive order that they did earlier in the
year would basically decertify take away the approval for the
use of the voting machines that are used all over
the country. One of the notions that sometimes Trump and
(39:23):
his people have is that all ballots should be counted
by hand. And that's a really bad idea because you
actually get more errors that way, and it also would
delay the counting and the reason we as a society
have moved past counting our fingers. But a lot of
these things, as you say, are in this executive were.
(39:45):
One of the things that's happened, broadly speaking, is the
courts have stepped up on a lot of these things.
In particular, this is something the Brennan Center did. We
represented the League of Women Voters in a lawsuit on
this executive work, and a federal court actually blocked some
of the worst parts of it, the parts that where
(40:06):
Trump is pretending to order an independent agency that he
has no authority over to do these things. But it's
still playing out in the courts and the story isn't
finished yet.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
So you have the seizing machines, which is really scary,
and then you have another thing, which I also thought
was horrifying, accessing sensitive voter file data. Explain to us
what this story there is.
Speaker 8 (40:32):
Well, the states keep these voter records. There's lots of
sensitive stuff in it, often social security numbers, other things
like that. The federal government has no place demanding that
data just to look at it. What it seems to
be the case is that this will be used to say, Aha,
look at all the fraud and to try to undermine
(40:54):
the elections in advance. A lot of this violence, privacy rules,
a lot of it is illegal. Some of it, as
I said, came in this demand that the states turn
over these records to DOGE or they will lose federal money.
Now you're starting to see the Justice Department make these demands,
and there are now task forces set up in the
(41:18):
Justice Department, in the US Attorney's Office in Washington, DC
and other places that are very explicitly rattling the cage
to threaten election officials, to threaten prosecutions of election officials
who do their job. And there's a guy named Chris Krebs.
I don't know if you have heard it, but he
was just the head of cybersecurity in the Trump Department
(41:41):
of pum Land Security in twenty twenty, and he said
accurately that the twenty twenty election was secure and the
most secure in history. And Trump fired him at the time,
and now he's having him investigated. And the goal here
is to rattle and shake the confidence and shake the
courage of state and local officials so that when it
(42:03):
should be necessary, when the moment comes and they need
to show their backbone, they'll be afraid to do it.
So far, the state and local officials have been great.
They know their job. You know, none of them signed
up for being high stakes combatants and politics. They're not
the big glamour jobs. A lot of the stuff that
they're being asked to do is illegal. We and others
(42:26):
are talking to lots of lawyers to make sure people
know what their legal remedies are and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
Yeah, that's really scary to me that it's largely an
intimidation campaign, right, Yes, I.
Speaker 8 (42:36):
Think it's an intimidation campaign that will grow in intensity
over the months. And the question again is, well, why's
the what's the endgame? Why do this?
Speaker 7 (42:46):
You know?
Speaker 8 (42:46):
And I do think that undermining public confidence in the results,
making people think wrongly that there's lots of fraud, endlessly
discovering Aha, now we found the smoking gun of the
of the of the phantom vote, and this and that
kind of stuff, to create a fog of misinformation about
the elections in advance seems to be one of the goals.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
So what can people do If you're listening to this
and you're freaking out, or you read it last weekend
and with your husband and both freaked out about it.
What can people do?
Speaker 8 (43:21):
So, first of all, back up those state and local officials.
Let them know that you understand what they're going through.
They need to stand strong, they need to do their part.
They need support from all across the political spectrum.
Speaker 5 (43:31):
You know, as the.
Speaker 8 (43:31):
Elections draw closer, there are all kinds of things people
can do, working with law enforcement and others, poll watching
and those things. Though it's a little early for that.
It's really important that courts do their part as well.
And like I said, a lot of them have, but
we haven't heard from the Supreme Court on a lot
of this stuff. So much of this effort is illegal,
(43:52):
and courts need to continue to rule when that comes
before them on that. And ultimately, I think that it
is a lot harder to rig an election. There's a
lot harder to stealing election when lots of people are
voting and lots of people are yelling and lots of
people are watching. And the more focus on this there is,
(44:13):
the better it is because I think one of the
things that I hope comes out of this period of
democratic destruction is a renewed commitment to fixing our democracy
and making sure that this kind of thing can happen again.
I worry that, like as you may have followed, you know,
there's a lot of chatter, oh, you know, what issues
(44:34):
are there?
Speaker 4 (44:35):
Gee?
Speaker 8 (44:35):
You know Biden talked about democracy that means it's a.
Speaker 9 (44:38):
Dud, right, And I think that what we're seeing with
the Texas gerrymander shows that no, these issues are really
vital and that it's we need some courage from some
politicians to actually take action when they have the chance
to strengthen democracy and not just issue cresh releases.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Right, And I'm in that is like gonna come later.
Right now, Probably the only thing anyone can do is
try to protect our midterms so that they are so
that people have the freedom to go and vote, and
so that the votes are you know, that no one
messes with anything. One of the things they spend a
lot of time thinking about is if we do have
if there are free and fair elections and Democrats are
(45:21):
able to regain the levers of power, there has to
be an anti corruption legislation. Like Democrats have spent a
lot of time not legislating for any number of reasons.
Sometimes it's a Kirsten Cinema that derails them. Sometimes it's
their own anxiety about seeming you know, seeming overly partisan
(45:42):
or whatever.
Speaker 8 (45:43):
Yeah, So to give credit to Nancy Pelosi and people
like that, you know, they really push the Freedom to
Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act,
which were really important bills that would have addressed dark
money in politics, that would have addressed theair remagering that
we've strengthened early voting and automatic voter registration, a lot
(46:04):
of the other things, restored the Voting Rights Act. Those
bills had pass the House, they had a majority in
the Senate, and the problem then was that two Senators
mansioned in cinema who supported supposedly the bills wouldn't change
the philibuster rules to enable them to overcome the Republican blockade.
I think it's the case now that Democrats part of
(46:26):
the lesson they drew from that whole period was they
were going to change the filibuster rules to enable it
to pass it. You know, last year when visions danced
in some of their heads about a trifecta, they made
clear they were going to pass that bill, those bills
with a majority vote. I think that right now there's
a lot of looking at what the most important reforms
(46:49):
are today because of the extraordinary corruption and the breaches
of law and norms that we see from this administration.
And so what are the corruption measures to deal with
an era of Elon m and Donald Trump and the
monetization of government. How can we address the Supreme Court
and the role it plays. I think there's a lot
of enthusiasm for something like term limits as part of
(47:11):
any reform package. I think that it makes partisans of
all parties uncomfortable. But I think there ultimately needs to
be something on redistricting as there was, and voting of
course as well. So there's a lot of issues in
play and formulating what that package looks like. What counts
as not just what one is against, but what one
is for. And if you don't have a really robust
(47:33):
vision for how to strengthen democracy, people are going to
think it's just partisan wind. The main problem, honestly in
twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two was they waited.
The White House under President Biden waited a long time
to try to move that bill. And that's the kind
of thing one needs to do right at the start,
(47:53):
and not worry about twelve editorial boards if those exist anymore,
saying oh whoo, this is partisan.
Speaker 2 (48:00):
Michael Wallman, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you
for for than keep.
Speaker 8 (48:05):
Us sane and educated.
Speaker 6 (48:09):
They're normal fu Jesse Cannon, Molly.
Speaker 4 (48:14):
So I'm going to tell you a really tragic story.
Speaker 3 (48:17):
Please, big balls driving through the d C in a
very heavily policed area, he was attacked by a group
of teenagers in a carjacking. Police came literally as it
was happening. And now Trump says, you know, we got
to basically declare Marshall in DC. Is probably the next
step of whatever many people are assuming. But they're going
to order federal law enforcement officers to patrol the DC streets.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
We saw this happen in California. We've seen this happen
when Governor Hocal sent National Guard into our subways. It's
just a waste of everybody's time, right he's going to
federalize it. He's going to send all these people. They're
going to sit on the street and stare at their
phone and have nothing to you. And no one will
(49:02):
be better off for it, and it will be like
Trump's big power grab, but it won't do anything, and
it's just incredibly wasteful and stupid and makes no sense.
And he'll do it.
Speaker 3 (49:17):
You say, no one will be better off for it.
But candy Crush is going to make a lot of money.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
Candy Crush, Instagram. Those are the things that will benefit
tech companies, will TikTok, because you know TikTok, the Chinese
government will.
Speaker 5 (49:34):
Make some money.
Speaker 4 (49:35):
Oracle Larry Awesome.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
Merry Christmas to all whose help. 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.
Speaker 5 (49:52):
Of all this chaos.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
If you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a
friend and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds, and CNN's Harry Enton says jd Vance
is most likely to be the GOP nominee in twenty
twenty eight.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
We have such a great show for you today. Substacks
owned Ken Klippenstein stops by to talk to us about
the time the FBI showed up at his door. Then
we'll talk to the Brennan Center's own Michael Waldman about
the Brennan Center's report on how Trump is trying to
rig the midterms with a number of insane proposals.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
But first the news Somali Trump's team is picking a
fight with a big boy.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
I don't think they should mess with it because he's
way smarter than them.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
He's smarter, he's richer, and he's tougher, and he's also
just gonna win Governor Pritzker. Donald Trump very mad anyone
who dare disobey his insane cryptocracy. Basically, the White House
had a project to keep invasive fish out of the
(01:10):
Great Lakes. Installed Why Donald Trump cares about invasive fish?
I mean, my man doesn't believe climate change is real.
But you know, the point is he's using something to
blame pritz Gart.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
When I heard about this, I thought this was like
the plot of the South Park episode the other night,
like like an invasive fish, Like, what the hell is
going on here?
Speaker 5 (01:30):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
I mean, look, I think it's important to take a
minute here to talk about South Park.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
I watched last night. Was amazing.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
I can't believe I think South Park is amazing in
twenty twenty five, but it was amazing.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
They did a great job.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
South Park is the new CNN. I think we should
all agree that the White House Press Corps dreams of
doing as good a job of summing up this White
House as South Park. Thank you Trey and Matt for
doing what the mainstream media cannot narrating our downfall into kryptocracy.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Personally, I never thought i'd be spiling while dogs get shot.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yes, you're giving it away. And by the way, let
me just say, if you don't think that Matt and
Trey are going to end up in Seacott or Alligator Alcatraz,
you are wrong, because Christy Nome has Actually, I think
she responded to the episode numerous times.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
In fact, as did mister j Dvantz pretending he's hit
on the joke when he very much is not.
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Yeah, you know, you really see how much politics is
downstream of culture and how the culture does in fact dictate,
and South Park is a great example of that. They
have really just nailed it in a way that is
important and also accurate.
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Yeah, you make a great point, like too much the
character it doesn't resemble the actual person charactered, and this
really is like just dead on showing what.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
They are like.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
It's actually weirdly more accurate because there's so much anxiety
about all of the lawsuits and ways in which different
groups have been targeted, and that anxiety has really worked
to silence a lot of us. So to watch Matt
and Trey just go after it, I mean, Bravo team.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Speaking of that, there's actually been some really interesting pushbacks
from journalists this week going much harder on politicians. This
one you flagged for me, I think is really really
great with.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
You, Nancy Mace, that was really that was really great.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
But this is Joe Scarborough versus Mike Waller, one of
the biggest lying liars there is in our congressional body,
which is really saying something.
Speaker 4 (03:38):
Let me play it for you.
Speaker 6 (03:39):
Well, respectfully, Mike. The Congressional Budget Office, which obviously is
part of the institution where you serve, says that it
should be about nine hundred billion to one trillion dollars
in Medicaid cuts. If you look at the hospitals in
your own district, Modi forty Nayak Hospital is already saying
(04:03):
because of that vote, because of these cuts, they're going
to have to cut back services, They're going to have
to cut staff, they're going to have to cut care.
Same thing with Westchester Hospital. Hospitals across your district are
going to have to cut services and care and staff
members and budgets because of your vote and because of
(04:25):
this bill that passes. That's what they're saying. It's not
some left wing focus. Well, I'm just telling you what
they what they've said. Uh.
Speaker 7 (04:38):
And so what they're what you're parroting, what they're parenting
is the same talking points being put out by the state.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Uh.
Speaker 8 (04:45):
And you one to know their business matter.
Speaker 6 (04:49):
You know, you know their business better than they know
their business. Conferenceman, you can keep talking if you want to,
But are you saying that they know you know their business?
Speaker 8 (05:00):
You know doctor's business.
Speaker 6 (05:02):
You know hospital administrator's business better than they know their
own business. Is that what you're telling us here.
Speaker 7 (05:08):
No, Joe, if you'd stop putting words in my mouth
and let me answer the.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Question, awesome, Yeah, awesome, awesome, awesome.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
More of that, especially because he's one of the main
people who knows that the journalists won't push background, so
he whis his ass off. He is one of the
worst in the business at it.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, that is such an incredible piece of
pushing back. And also you see like they just don't
have an answer, and it's really why we have to
when you're interviewing these people, you have to do it
so molly.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
As we know, Democrats have fled Texas to not allow
quorum and you know who's big Matt, Texas Governor Greg ABBITTT.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yeah. Look, they're threatening a lot to do a lot
of stupid crap. But the reality is breaking quorum is
not breaking the law. This is a sort of civil
Texas and not an illegal, illegal thing. And despite the
fact that John Cornyn called in for the FBI and
Cash is making noise to make noise, this is not right,
(06:11):
like they are representing their district and in fact, Trump
one fifty six percent of the votes in Texas in
twenty twenty four, which means that redistricting would in fact
make it so that Republicans controlled I don't know one
hundred percent of the seats.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
Hm, it's not a representative of democracy.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
I think what Democrats are doing here is really good
and really smart, and I also think that they should
keep it going, and I don't think they should go back.
There's some talk that maybe a Paxton an Abbott will
try and call another special session, but you know, they
could just stay. Like, there is no reason that those
Democrats have to go back. I mean, obviously it sucks
(06:51):
for them not to be at home, but like this
matters more. This is like they're morally correct, they're politically
on the right side of history. And the more that
this builds, the more attention it gets, the better served
everyone who is on this side of democracy is these
Texas state reps are doing God's work and they need
(07:11):
to keep doing it, and we need to keep telling
them they're doing the right thing, because like this is
undermining our democracy in a big, big way. Kenklippenstein is
the author of the substack of the same name. Welcome
to fast politics.
Speaker 5 (07:29):
Ken, Hey, go to be back with you.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
I was saying before this that I feel like you're
the troublemaker I dream of being, and you are getting
into you'll excuse the cliche, here some good trouble. So
you have run a foul of the cash Patel FBI,
and I would love for you to start with this
story because it's amazing.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
Yeah, you're talking about the nihilistic, violent extremist story.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Well, I would love you to start with when they
visited you, Like, I feel like there's a there's a
long character r about car. Yeah, start with how the
FBI came to recognize you.
Speaker 5 (08:07):
Okay, So the JD Vance vetting documents called the dossier.
I feel like that elevates it a little bit higher
than it should, because really what it was was the
Trump campaigns just looking at different potential candidates for VP
prior to when they picked Senator then Senator Vance and
just listing out his liabilities and so you know, when
I had this described me it ultimately sent to me
by it was hacked by the Ran government and said
(08:31):
I said that in the story so we could know yep,
and that's what precipitated the FBI visit because I thought, well,
you know, back during Clinton they'd published this stuff, and
in this case, I look at it and there's no
question that it's factual. If there was any question that
it was factual, I would approach it differently. But it's
all just open source stuff that you can go and verify.
(08:51):
So I would, you know, I would feel bad just
putting out like say, for instance, the Steele dossier has
all these sensational claims that you can't really vet. So
it's like I would feel bad post something like that.
But like in the case of just open stories stuff
on like his votes, on his comments on Trump in
the past, just like explicitly political stuff. So I thought, well,
why shouldn't this be out there as long as you
explain to people the providence and let them come to
(09:13):
their own conclusion so that they're not seeing that, you know,
like the Uranians put this out there, they obviously have
their set of reasons for doing so, you know, make
of that what you will. And so that's what I did.
And about two weeks later, I got a visit from
a pencil neck, very young FBI special agent who looked
like he might have tripped on his himbilical cord on
the way here, because he was just so such a youngster,
(09:36):
a nice guy, and he he introduced himself, you know,
counter intelligence officer, blah blah blah. And so he's he
reads me a written statement that he kind of opens
up from his pocket. It's all very robotic and sort
of stiff, and he's even sort of admitting. He's like, yeah,
this is a little weird. I don't think the fbis
necessarily should be always interacting with the media like this.
(09:56):
But you know, I got sent here by Washington, so
I got to read you the statement. So he says,
you were the recipient of an Iranian government and then
I kind off I said, yeah, I said that the story.
He goes, you did I said, yeah, did you read it?
He says no, he said when did you publish it?
And I'm thinking to myself, this guy didn't even read
the thing he's visiting to brief me on.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
So you just read the headline. I feel like this
is a great example of someone just re reading the
headline exactly.
Speaker 5 (10:18):
So he says, how long would you publish it? I said, ah,
about two weeks ago, And I joked I was like,
I thought you guys were going to consumer because I
knew there would be a risk of something like this
happening because of the politics involved. And he says, he says,
two weeks that's pretty fast for the federal government, and
so we're laughing about it. So the whole thing had
this kind of kaugh Cask quality to it where he
knew it was absurd. I knew it was absurd. He
knew I knew it was absurd. So anyways, and then
(10:40):
he leaves, Fortunately nothing happens, and then I got a
second visit when I published the Manifesto of the Israel
Embassy shooter in Washington several weeks ago, not to glorify him,
and I very explicitly in the story say this is
a terrible thing to have happened. And it wasn't a
positive story. I talk about his Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
How do you get that that was leaked t L Yes, Okay, yeah,
go on.
Speaker 5 (11:03):
So, so you know, in the story, I describe some
of his personal problems and like kind of awful things
he did to his friends. Like, I don't think anyone
could look at that and say, this person who's glorifying
what happened. I'm trying to tell what happens, that we
understand what led up to this moment, and hopefully you
can prevent the next one. So any case, I write
that story, put it out there, the response is pretty positive.
I thought it was going to be more angry, and
(11:24):
so there wasn't much backlash until the FBI visit literally
I think it was the next day, and this time
it was much more aggressive than the first time. It
was two older special agents that start saying, how did
you get this? Why do you have this? And it's like,
you know, I can't tell them who I got it from,
but you know, you can guess that after something like
this happens, this stuff is people are, you know, sending
(11:46):
it around and so it's like pretty straightfward explanation. But
D had this whole theory that, oh, did you have
fore knowledge? I didn't have four knowledge of it. I
found out the words like everyone else.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah, that wouldn't make any sense. I guess that's the
only button they can press on that. But people, really,
I mean releasing a manifesto, I mean there's a precedent
for that too, right.
Speaker 5 (12:09):
Yeah, totally. To me, it's not about do you publish
or now, it's how do you publish it? What kind
of context do you include?
Speaker 4 (12:15):
Are you?
Speaker 5 (12:15):
Are you like it's a legitimate question, I ask, like,
don't glorify it. But there's all kinds of ways you
can talk about something. You can talk about it from
the perspective of are there other people have these attitudes
or something like this might happen? Are the things we
can do to prevent or to kind of rebut these
belief systems that lead people to do something like this,
and so all of that I think is like a
more healthy response to it, rather than sticking your head
in the sand and being like, we're not going to
(12:37):
talk about this because it's bad thing, and if people
see it, they're just gonna, like the masuring candidate, just
stand up and carry out order. It's like, people don't
work that way. I have a higher respect for the
public than evidently the FBI does.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
So what about talk to us about this? Nihil is this? Yeah?
Talk to us about this?
Speaker 5 (12:55):
Yeah? Really?
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 5 (12:56):
A third next chapter of this story. Yeah, So they
have a new threat category the FBI that I first
reported based on court documents that I found. I saw
this phrases like wait, I've never seen this before. I
pay very close attention to The FBI has all kinds
of different designations for threat actors. This is a completely
new and nihilistic violent extremist. So I look it up
and start talking to some special agent. I have some
(13:17):
friends at FBI. I don't want to give the impression
that across the board there were good people in all
sorts of agencies, including that one, right, And so I
asked them about it, and they basically tell me, oh,
this is the new thing from Washington. Basically it's going
to shift attention away from the white supremacist groups and
the January sixth style stuff that they were focused on
under the previous administration, and that carries with it. It's
a cold on a second, you just did this and
(13:38):
there's no public debate about like that. Were like, first
of all, what even is that? And I'll get into
that in a second. A second, is it okay to
let this replace and supplant these other categories that they've
been using for years and years? And is this going
to mean that there's a politicized component to how they're
going after these things? And so if you look at
the definition, the definition is consistent. They're like they believe
nothing and so I start looking through and there's some
(14:00):
stomach turning cases. I don't want to minimize how awful
it is some of the groups that they're going after
what they do, but to call them nihilist just erases
their politics. In some cases they're neo Nazis. That's not nihilists,
that's a belief system.
Speaker 2 (14:12):
Yes, but let me just push back on that. Isn't
it good that they're still going after neo Nazis?
Speaker 5 (14:19):
Oh definitely. I'm not saying that they shouldn't.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Just like I was worried that they had stopped doing
that stuff because they were like, these are our guys.
Speaker 5 (14:27):
My concern isn't that they're going after people committing crimes.
Absolutely do that, particularly neo Nazis. My problem is that
when you designate it something, then at the end of
the year, in their own internal data and what they
brief to Congress and how what informs their priorities going forward,
they're going to say, ooh, there was an increase in
Nihilsic violent extremists. And what they're going to see also
is suddenly, oh, look at that Neo Nazi extremism went
(14:48):
down because you've reclassified it under a different category. That's
my concern is it's not It doesn't seem to me
to be the appropriate category for what's going on.
Speaker 2 (14:56):
Right no question. I mean, that's for sure true. So
I would love you to sort of talk to me
about what you kind of think the national security landscape
looks like at this moment, because you have Cash Batal
and Dan Bongino at the FBI. You have, I mean,
you just have so many, so much weirdness happening there.
(15:19):
I'm wondering if you could, yeah, talk us through what
you think it looks, what these agencies look like right now.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (15:25):
It's kind of ironic because Trump is trying to relitigate
somebody having a decade ago Russia Gate and talking about
the declassification of some of these records, which I'm not
necessarily against, but it's like so long ago. And the
biggest irony here is he's talking about how politicized that
that whole thing was, which I in part can can
see why he didn't like it and what his christims are,
but then he's responding to it with this overtly politicized administration. Yes,
(15:50):
everything he says is like, you know, call me and
Hillary Clinton and the Democrats in Obama, It's like, are
you kidding? I thought you said that you didn't like
the politicization, so you're going to bond a fire with
fire and it just doesn't make any sense. And if
you look at the individual guys, I've been amazed at
how much lack of vision in some ways there is
because it is politicized, and they have this list of enemies,
but it feels so dated, like who's thought about any
(16:13):
of these names in ten years? And you know what
I mean, It's like they're living in twenty sixteen. And
then in addition to that, their ideas for the Bureau,
this is very interesting. Initially the Trump proposed cuts to
the bureau cash bat push back and said we actually
need more money. I think what ended up happening at
appropriations is they end up giving them that more money.
So the kind of promise of shrinking the quote unquote
(16:33):
deep state has just completely fallen by the wayside. And
I don't think I don't think there's much appreciate. I mean,
the paradox I think is most evident in the in
the Epstein case, where they make all these lofty promises
and then you see the Justice Department review, which if
you read it carefully, has a sent incident that says
Epstein had over a thousand victims, which suggests like, that's
a that's more than I would have, that's more than
(16:54):
we knew publicly before that prosecutor said it was something
in the dozens. I thought it was two hundred. That's
what they previously it said. And then in the final review,
based on the documents and whatever, it's like, Okay, so
there's something bigger here. I don't know exactly what, but
like it's not unreasonable for people to say all those
guys and just these two people did all of that.
So but the administration is like pretending like nothing happened.
(17:16):
They're just like, oh, what are you talking about? There's
nothing there. It's like you just talked. You were just
gas people up about this for the last eight years.
So they're in this position where they have to deliver
on demands for their base because they've failed in these
different ways, like I'm talking about like the fbid budget,
the Ebstein investigation, and that makes me nervous because it's like, well,
how are they going to do that? And then you
have these deployments to Los Angeles, you have the militarized
(17:36):
FBI where they're blurring people's faces and public press releases.
So it's like, I think they're under pressure to look
like they're changing something, doing something.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
Yeah, I want to go into Ebstein because it's just fascinating.
So the polling for like releasing the Ebstein files is
like eighty percent. Like all Americans, they don't necessarily believe
in God, they don't believe in Santa Claus, they don't
believe in climate change, but they do believe that they
want to see those fucking files. And I feel like
what's important about this story is it's a story about
(18:05):
the base and not a story about you know, like
it's one thing for people on CNN to be like,
this is beyond the pale, but this is Trump. These
are the people who put Trump in there. This is
the Marjorie Taylor Greens. So do you think they're stay
still feeling the same way, because I know, like Charlie
Kirk and some of Trump's people have been like no, no,
(18:26):
you know, but do you think there's still that ground
swell number one and number two? Like what could they
theoretically even do?
Speaker 5 (18:36):
Yeah, So you have to distinguish between the parts of
the base that are like the influencers that are kind
of like pushing Trump's agenda, and then just the ordinary voters.
I would say the influencer class has largely been bought.
If you look at like Charlie Kirk, he goes on
his show and says, I'm done talking about Epstein for now.
I'm going to quote this is a direct quote. I'm
going to trust my friends in government. It's like, wait,
I thought you were a conservative. The hell's frozen over
(18:59):
that they got to can trust the government? It was yeah.
And and then just to give you another example, there
was Denesh Desuza him saying, oh, yeah, we got to
move on and focus on other things. But if it's
very interesting, if you look at the base, they're not
having it, or at least when I looked at it
this past couple of weeks, they were like, what are
you talking about? This was one of your promises. And
you know that the cash Betel talked about it repeatedly.
(19:20):
And so I'm honestly sort of sympathetic to the base.
Not that I have the same interpretation of what Epstein
means that they do, but they're right. They were promised
something and they haven't been given anything close to it.
It was like a two page Justice Department review and
a thousand victims. There's got to be a little bit
more at least, right, So that's kind of my perspective
on it. And it's interesting too because it parallels a
(19:40):
collapse in the public support for the deportation regime. If
you look at the polling right now, it's gone like
straight down. So I wonder if Epstein is actually symptomatic
of a deeper dissatisfaction with the administration. But that's an
acceptable way to express it because you're not going to
come out and say, oh, actually immigration, I'm okay, you're
going You've got to sub media through something else, you
(20:01):
know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
I'm that's just really an interesting No, that's an interesting theory,
and I hadn't. I mean, they're definitely there's something like
the bottom has fallen out on Trump's support, So that
makes a lot of sense that this would be a
sort of palpable way to express it. I'm going to
push you for a minute, just because I'm this is
like my own edification here more than anything. What do
(20:23):
you think is in there that like I always just
assumed and we're just get we're just spitballing here. So
this is not cable news like we can just we're
just making guesses here. So but like I always assumed
they went into the files saw there was nothing, maybe
that Epstein had done some like low level government participation
(20:46):
with certain stuff, you know, not like a high level
CIA guy, but just someone who you know, they CIA
has people who just sort of push on other people
but aren't really like in it the same way, say
like whatever is I mean? And that they just were like,
it's all you know, stuff that implicates some celebrities or
(21:08):
wealthy people, and also just nothing that makes anyone look good.
But I mean, do you think there's more than that
in there?
Speaker 5 (21:16):
I think that there needs to be more nuanced and
how Epstein is a figure and how the intelligence community
is characterized, because when people say, oh, was he an asset,
they don't understand that there's different like levels of relationships
that exist, right these agencies, Like it takes almost nothing
to just fill out a confidential human source report and
say hey, here's what somebody said. That doesn't mean that
you're like meeting with them and paying them and directing
(21:38):
them or anything. They processed. Just to give you another example,
I was just we're gonna sorry about this. The CIA
has a program called the National Resource Agency, I think
it's called, and where they just process interviews of Americans
coming back travelers coming back over abroad from countries of
interests in CIA. So say you've traveled to I don't know,
Russia or Ukraine or North career for whatever reason, and
(21:58):
then they say, oh, what did you see there? What
was the you know, did you see any weapons here
in this town or something? And this is a routine
thing that they probably do thousands and thousands of people
just intake. And it's like, so that's not an asset relationship.
You don't fill something out, you're not being tasked with things.
It's just them asking a couple of things when they
come back in, and it's like, that's the low level
of association that I would expect to come out if
(22:21):
they if just because Epstein knew everybody. And that's another
part of this thing I think people are not entirely
honest about, which is that this guy was an almost
pathological collector of people in relationships and he just loved
being around important people. That doesn't mean that he was
like like, we probably all have this friend that's like,
look at this photo I have of so and so
famous person, you know what I mean. And it's like, okay,
(22:43):
I'm sure that you kind of took a picture with
him for a second and said hi, Like that doesn't
mean that there's some sustained relationship there. So that to
me is some of the nuance I'd like to see
in this is like, Okay, yes he had an they
say Epstein associate, like you and I and are associate
right now, because you know what I mean, It's like,
it doesn't mean that there's some deep financial relation so
(23:03):
he did.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Yeah, that's your take too, is that he just was
sort of knew everybody is in photos.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
Let's be real. The guy was a con man, and
he went around telling people that he has at these
connections and it's very much as interest to do so
because then he can dine out on these names. Is
that I know Bill Clinton, I know so and so on?
But who really knows what that means? You can't trust someone, right,
an inveterate liar.
Speaker 2 (23:25):
Right, so just a con man, like he just was
good at conning people out of money, right, and also
blackmailing them.
Speaker 5 (23:32):
I have kind of a nuanced position on this, which
is that I don't like when the major press just says, oh,
this whole thing is a conspiracy theory because the attitude
and the part of the public to look at this
and see, Okay, there's a lot of influential people here
and they seem okay with this world of whatever, all
these young women. That's an appropriate reaction to this. This
is kind of like a me too thing.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
I think definitely is.
Speaker 5 (23:55):
And so but that's different than he's cavorting with. You know,
the CI is sending him here to target this guy.
That's just a high society tolerating grossness thing, and that's
bad and something should be done about that. And it's
appropriate that people feel that something should be done about that.
But it's different, I think, than something more, something more
conscious or planned out, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
So that's what I think it is, too, is that,
like you know, the Weinstein stuff, it's like disgusting sexual malfeasance, rape,
harassment of children, women who are between the ages of
fourteen and eighteen, which is insane, but that it's not
(24:37):
a sort of larger like you know, Seria is doing
this to get this.
Speaker 5 (24:44):
To get that Donald Trump the president. Now, I don't
know if anyone knew. Is on record in New York
Daily News. I think in the two thousand.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Thin York Magazine two say the joys beautiful women as
much as I do, some of them are the many
of them are on the younger.
Speaker 5 (25:01):
Isn't that bad enough? I mean, that's it, That's what
the conspiracy, That's what the thing is here. That's bad
enough that these guys look the other way on this stuff.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
I think that the fundamental important element here is that
that is bad enough, that the fact that he was
going around with teenage girls is bad enough. And in fact,
he was on the sex predator there's like a sex
predator registrary as sex offender registry, and Jeffrey Epstein was
(25:34):
on it after two thousand and five, you know, and
it was like his house, like on the map, you
could see it. And I remember actually looking up and thinking, oh, yeah,
there's that rich guy who everyone knows is a sex predator.
But for some reason it has avoided punishment this.
Speaker 5 (25:52):
Whole time, right, And that's where I hesitate to have
the reaction that some quarters of kind of elite opinion
have with are just like ew, this UFO style conspiracy stuff.
It's like, no, there's something there. Even if it's not
it's the extreme.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
It's also like it's Weinstein, right, It's like, you know,
these people are doing something bad and you don't exactly
know what it is, but you know, I mean I
think it's you know, and you know, and you don't
go to dinner at their house.
Speaker 5 (26:21):
Because his brand, he was kind of supposed to be
the playboy ish guy who fucks and his hanging out
like you can't tell me they didn't have some ink,
Like come on, you know that's basically my position is,
come on, like this does not reflect well. I mean,
Noam Chowsky met with this guy, I think after the conviction,
and this is somebody that loves yeah and said, you know,
(26:43):
he did his time, and it's kind of like that's
something that should be an attitude shift, like yeah, yeah,
Like I guess they don't necessarily need to be like
exiled to an island, but there should be some attitude
of like, Okay, has this person changed at all or
no one seems to care about that and in the
kind of highnxiety.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
I mean, we're out of time, but I want to
quote the great Jesse Cannon, who just said to me,
producer Jesse, who does not get a lot of respect
on this podcast because I give him a very hard time,
but he was the one who said, no one is
ever canceled. That cancelation is like bullshit that these people
always are able to whether it. So, if you are
(27:23):
a sex predator of children, you should be canceled. I
think we should go out and that should be like
a bumper sticker.
Speaker 5 (27:30):
And that's what this is all about. If the public
hadn't had the outcry that it did, he would have
gotten off with the brief sentence he had and he'd
be back doing the same thing he was doing. And
that's why people don't trust the system, because I think,
we'll look how you handled it last time. I honestly
empathize with even the most extreme conspiraence miney people because
I get why they don't trust them anymore. They really
did blow this the first time around.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
And many many other things too. Ken. I hope you
will come back. Michael Waldman is the president end of
the Brennan Center for Justice. Welcome to past violand Michael Waldman.
Speaker 8 (28:05):
It's great to be with you again. Mollie.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
So you've head the Brandan Center for Justice, which is
extremely important legal resource you provide towards You provide all
of the work the NEAT for many of the nonprofits
that protect our democracy. You guys have a truly harrowing
report about the midterms and the Trump administration's plan for them.
(28:34):
Can you talk us through it? And first, I would
love you to talk just like before you even start
talking us through it, just explain to us a little bit,
just like a quick refresher on what Brennan does and
where you are in this process.
Speaker 5 (28:49):
Sure.
Speaker 8 (28:50):
So we are a non partisan law and policy institute.
We work to strengthen, to reform and when necessary, to
defend the systems of democracy and justice in this country.
So they worked for everybody, and so as you can imagine,
this is an intense time given how much assault there
is on our democracy and a lot of the details,
(29:11):
a lot of the arcane stuff turns out to matter
a lot. And so we're part of mostly a thank tank,
also an advocacy group and a communications hub, and we're busy,
and you know, it really feels in a lot of ways,
like in the last week or two that the twenty
twenty six midterms have kind of swung into view as
(29:33):
the looming next year of political activity in this country.
And the key thing is voters in our democracy have
to have the final say, and they have to have
the final say in twenty twenty six. And in the
last several elections, there were a lot of pressures on
the election system, from COVID to violence, but the system held.
Election officials from both parties worked well together and the
(29:56):
elections were accurate and safe and secure. But now, as
our new analysis shows, there's a new factor that we've
not had before, which is the federal government itself as
a threat to the elections, a concerted campaign by the
Trump administration to undermine the twenty twenty six elections. And
(30:19):
some of this stuff is well known, more or less.
Some of it is kind of under the radar, but
it clearly is adding up to a concerted campaign. And
in this new analysis that we published this week, we
connect the dots.
Speaker 2 (30:32):
So the first thing is very well known, which is
that Trump is trying to re gerrymander states in time
for the midterms, and that he's even said, for example,
he said in Texas that he was entitled to five
more seats, So talk us through that because I feel
like that's the first part of the story.
Speaker 8 (30:52):
Yeah, it is. And interestingly that came up so recently
and so abruptly. It's not in this report, but there's
no question that this is. There's a lot going on
and that's visible now. Our report, as great as it is,
doesn't have people, you know, hiding them in by the interstate.
That thing of leaving Austin to avoid a quorum on
(31:13):
jerrymandering is this is not actually the first time that's
happened in Texas. This is kind of a bit of
a tradition. We want Congress to be representative. Jerrymandering has
been bad throughout American history. It's a bad thing for
politicians to choose the voters rather than the other way around.
What is happening in Texas is particularly egregious. It is
just being explicitly done to squeeze five seats out for
(31:36):
the Republicans. It's at the expense of, very often of
voters of color. It's being done under the orders of
someone who doesn't live in Texas, Donald Trump, and it's
in the middle of the decade. Remember the census happens
every ten years. And that's when you're supposed to draw
the district lines. So it's a big fight that the
Democrats have left the state to avoid a quorum. The
(31:56):
Republican leadership of the state is trying to have them arrested.
I don't think that's going to work. It's not a
surprise that the Democrats in blue states are readying a
response or are responding accordingly, and I don't think we
should be surprised by that. I don't think it's a
good thing ultimately for the country to have this kind
of arms race. So the final answer, I think it's
(32:17):
really important that we never lose sight of the following.
The answer has to be ultimately national standards that apply
to red states and blue states alike. And you know,
the Supreme Court was going to do this and then
backed out and said that federal courts cannot police parties
and jerrymandering, but Congress could do it. The Freedom to
(32:38):
Vote Act, which you've heard me rant about, came really
close to passage two years ago. It would ban jerry
mandering nationwide in red states and in blue states and
bar mid decade redistricting. In other words, if it had
become law, this would not be happening. And it's really
(32:58):
critical that politicians who talk about democracy, who like to
give speeches about democracy being under threat, that when they
get their hands on the levers of power, do something
about protecting democracy. Unrigged the system just as enthusiastically and
energetically as some other politicians are rigging the system. So
that's that piece of it, and you know you're going
(33:20):
to see this play out in a bunch of states.
California is considering putting a new map on the ballot
in November because the Redistrict and Commission was created not
by Democrats but actually by voters and by Governor Schwarzenegger
backing it. He's a Republican. And in other states like
Illinois and New York and Maryland, again the Democrats are
(33:42):
looking to effect, you know, fight fire with fire. But
ultimately the answer is national standards, I think. But that's
only part of the story. Rights about voting and how
and the threats to the voting system with a little
less drama are really important and unnerving.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
So that is what I wanted to talk about next.
So in this report, you have a bunch of different
issues that the federal government is trying to mess with
elections with and I would love you to talk about
this attempting to rewrite election rules and interfere with election
administration by executive order, because executive orders they don't have
(34:20):
a ton of legal weight. It's more like just you know,
they're not it's not real, but it's real if the
Supreme Court will allow it to stand.
Speaker 8 (34:29):
So very often we're like a malevolent press release.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Exactly, malevolent press release. I'm writing that down. That's very sark.
Speaker 8 (34:37):
So the key thing to start is to remember that
under the law and under the constitution, states run elections,
and the Congress can pass laws setting national standards, but
the executive branch and especially the president, has almost no
role in these elections under normal circumstances. So it's just
Trump's impersonal attempts to seize control over the election system
(35:01):
at all is its own form of an egregious breach.
Among the things that are part of this kind of
concerted strategy is an executive order. As you said, that
was one of gazillions, and so it was easy to
lose sight on that required would require, if it were
to go into effect, you to show a passport to
(35:21):
register to vote in the United States under the federal form,
which you know half of all Americans don't have a passport.
It wouldn't even allow a birth certificate, as problematic as
that is. You need to have a passport or something
like that. What the Trump White House has done as
well is purge the election security officials and agencies that
(35:47):
have been doing a good job of helping states protect
their elections. It is requiring trying to require states to
turnover voter data to DOGE because you know what, could
ye find the fraud just like they found all those
non existent frauds whatever security And according to the Associated Press,
(36:09):
in the last few days, nineteen states already have gotten
demands or requests from the Justice Department for their voter records.
So this is happening. The whole of the federal government
is being sort of weaponized in this way. And of course,
as you know, Trump himself went to the Justice Department,
spoke to the cheering attorneys who he had appointed there
(36:33):
and said, I want you to prosecute election officials. Yeah,
and it's a whole gearing up of the prosecution mechanisms
to threaten these election officials. And when you think about
what happened in twenty twenty. You know, it was a
handful of Republican very often officials at different levels of
government who, whatever they might have done wrong or right,
(36:55):
other realms of their work stood up. Whether it was
Brad Raffensberger, the Secretary of State of Georgia, who you
know wouldn't quote find eleven thousand votes, or Attorney General
bar who told Trump that this is that it was
a Barnard epithet, that his claims that were bs. So
(37:17):
you know, now the administration is stocked with election deniers.
So all of this adds up to something new. We
haven't had this before in this country. To have the
old federal government weigh in put some on the scale
in this way.
Speaker 2 (37:30):
So you have the executive orders, and then you have
what's happened in I think it's already happened in Wyoming,
right where some red states are mandating proof of whatever.
Speaker 8 (37:43):
Well, you know, some states are trying to have done
it and actually backed off doing it because it turned
out it disenfranchised so many eligible voters, including.
Speaker 2 (37:53):
Yeah, Trump voters too, because Trump has us low frequency.
Speaker 8 (37:56):
There's a reason why states don't do this, and yeah,
now you know, so there's a lot of this goes
back to this conspiracy theory that there's lots of non
citizens who are voting, and it's just not it's not true.
And states have very robust systems in place to make
sure that only citizens are voting, only citizens should vote.
But that good news is only citizens basically do.
Speaker 2 (38:18):
Vote, and there's very little evidence of non citizens voting.
Speaker 8 (38:21):
Yeah, and you know people, I you know as you can.
We have found when we make these arguments to people
publicly that it's less effective to point out that it
doesn't happen or that it's illegal already many times over
could but but but more that the states take this
really seriously and have a lot of safeguards in place
(38:45):
to prevent cheating of that kind.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
So executive orders, and then one of the scarier ones
is messing with the machine, the election of quote. So
talk us through that.
Speaker 8 (38:57):
So if you remember, one of the key things Trump
tried to do in twenty twenty was to seize the
voting machines. I don't know what that would have told him,
but the executive order that they did earlier in the
year would basically decertify take away the approval for the
use of the voting machines that are used all over
the country. One of the notions that sometimes Trump and
(39:23):
his people have is that all ballots should be counted
by hand. And that's a really bad idea because you
actually get more errors that way, and it also would
delay the counting and the reason we as a society
have moved past counting our fingers. But a lot of
these things, as you say, are in this executive were.
(39:45):
One of the things that's happened, broadly speaking, is the
courts have stepped up on a lot of these things.
In particular, this is something the Brennan Center did. We
represented the League of Women Voters in a lawsuit on
this executive work, and a federal court actually blocked some
of the worst parts of it, the parts that where
(40:06):
Trump is pretending to order an independent agency that he
has no authority over to do these things. But it's
still playing out in the courts and the story isn't
finished yet.
Speaker 2 (40:16):
So you have the seizing machines, which is really scary,
and then you have another thing, which I also thought
was horrifying, accessing sensitive voter file data. Explain to us
what this story there is.
Speaker 8 (40:32):
Well, the states keep these voter records. There's lots of
sensitive stuff in it, often social security numbers, other things
like that. The federal government has no place demanding that
data just to look at it. What it seems to
be the case is that this will be used to say, Aha,
look at all the fraud and to try to undermine
(40:54):
the elections in advance. A lot of this violence, privacy rules,
a lot of it is illegal. Some of it, as
I said, came in this demand that the states turn
over these records to DOGE or they will lose federal money.
Now you're starting to see the Justice Department make these demands,
and there are now task forces set up in the
(41:18):
Justice Department, in the US Attorney's Office in Washington, DC
and other places that are very explicitly rattling the cage
to threaten election officials, to threaten prosecutions of election officials
who do their job. And there's a guy named Chris Krebs.
I don't know if you have heard it, but he
was just the head of cybersecurity in the Trump Department
(41:41):
of pum Land Security in twenty twenty, and he said
accurately that the twenty twenty election was secure and the
most secure in history. And Trump fired him at the time,
and now he's having him investigated. And the goal here
is to rattle and shake the confidence and shake the
courage of state and local officials so that when it
(42:03):
should be necessary, when the moment comes and they need
to show their backbone, they'll be afraid to do it.
So far, the state and local officials have been great.
They know their job. You know, none of them signed
up for being high stakes combatants and politics. They're not
the big glamour jobs. A lot of the stuff that
they're being asked to do is illegal. We and others
(42:26):
are talking to lots of lawyers to make sure people
know what their legal remedies are and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (42:31):
Yeah, that's really scary to me that it's largely an
intimidation campaign, right, Yes, I.
Speaker 8 (42:36):
Think it's an intimidation campaign that will grow in intensity
over the months. And the question again is, well, why's
the what's the endgame? Why do this?
Speaker 7 (42:46):
You know?
Speaker 8 (42:46):
And I do think that undermining public confidence in the results,
making people think wrongly that there's lots of fraud, endlessly
discovering Aha, now we found the smoking gun of the
of the of the phantom vote, and this and that
kind of stuff, to create a fog of misinformation about
the elections in advance seems to be one of the goals.
Speaker 2 (43:10):
So what can people do If you're listening to this
and you're freaking out, or you read it last weekend
and with your husband and both freaked out about it.
What can people do?
Speaker 8 (43:21):
So, first of all, back up those state and local officials.
Let them know that you understand what they're going through.
They need to stand strong, they need to do their part.
They need support from all across the political spectrum.
Speaker 5 (43:31):
You know, as the.
Speaker 8 (43:31):
Elections draw closer, there are all kinds of things people
can do, working with law enforcement and others, poll watching
and those things. Though it's a little early for that.
It's really important that courts do their part as well.
And like I said, a lot of them have, but
we haven't heard from the Supreme Court on a lot
of this stuff. So much of this effort is illegal,
(43:52):
and courts need to continue to rule when that comes
before them on that. And ultimately, I think that it
is a lot harder to rig an election. There's a
lot harder to stealing election when lots of people are
voting and lots of people are yelling and lots of
people are watching. And the more focus on this there is,
(44:13):
the better it is because I think one of the
things that I hope comes out of this period of
democratic destruction is a renewed commitment to fixing our democracy
and making sure that this kind of thing can happen again.
I worry that, like as you may have followed, you know,
there's a lot of chatter, oh, you know, what issues
(44:34):
are there?
Speaker 4 (44:35):
Gee?
Speaker 8 (44:35):
You know Biden talked about democracy that means it's a.
Speaker 9 (44:38):
Dud, right, And I think that what we're seeing with
the Texas gerrymander shows that no, these issues are really
vital and that it's we need some courage from some
politicians to actually take action when they have the chance
to strengthen democracy and not just issue cresh releases.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Right, And I'm in that is like gonna come later.
Right now, Probably the only thing anyone can do is
try to protect our midterms so that they are so
that people have the freedom to go and vote, and
so that the votes are you know, that no one
messes with anything. One of the things they spend a
lot of time thinking about is if we do have
if there are free and fair elections and Democrats are
(45:21):
able to regain the levers of power, there has to
be an anti corruption legislation. Like Democrats have spent a
lot of time not legislating for any number of reasons.
Sometimes it's a Kirsten Cinema that derails them. Sometimes it's
their own anxiety about seeming you know, seeming overly partisan
(45:42):
or whatever.
Speaker 8 (45:43):
Yeah, So to give credit to Nancy Pelosi and people
like that, you know, they really push the Freedom to
Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act,
which were really important bills that would have addressed dark
money in politics, that would have addressed theair remagering that
we've strengthened early voting and automatic voter registration, a lot
(46:04):
of the other things, restored the Voting Rights Act. Those
bills had pass the House, they had a majority in
the Senate, and the problem then was that two Senators
mansioned in cinema who supported supposedly the bills wouldn't change
the philibuster rules to enable them to overcome the Republican blockade.
I think it's the case now that Democrats part of
(46:26):
the lesson they drew from that whole period was they
were going to change the filibuster rules to enable it
to pass it. You know, last year when visions danced
in some of their heads about a trifecta, they made
clear they were going to pass that bill, those bills
with a majority vote. I think that right now there's
a lot of looking at what the most important reforms
(46:49):
are today because of the extraordinary corruption and the breaches
of law and norms that we see from this administration.
And so what are the corruption measures to deal with
an era of Elon m and Donald Trump and the
monetization of government. How can we address the Supreme Court
and the role it plays. I think there's a lot
of enthusiasm for something like term limits as part of
(47:11):
any reform package. I think that it makes partisans of
all parties uncomfortable. But I think there ultimately needs to
be something on redistricting as there was, and voting of
course as well. So there's a lot of issues in
play and formulating what that package looks like. What counts
as not just what one is against, but what one
is for. And if you don't have a really robust
(47:33):
vision for how to strengthen democracy, people are going to
think it's just partisan wind. The main problem, honestly in
twenty twenty one and twenty twenty two was they waited.
The White House under President Biden waited a long time
to try to move that bill. And that's the kind
of thing one needs to do right at the start,
(47:53):
and not worry about twelve editorial boards if those exist anymore,
saying oh whoo, this is partisan.
Speaker 2 (48:00):
Michael Wallman, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you
for for than keep.
Speaker 8 (48:05):
Us sane and educated.
Speaker 6 (48:09):
They're normal fu Jesse Cannon, Molly.
Speaker 4 (48:14):
So I'm going to tell you a really tragic story.
Speaker 3 (48:17):
Please, big balls driving through the d C in a
very heavily policed area, he was attacked by a group
of teenagers in a carjacking. Police came literally as it
was happening. And now Trump says, you know, we got
to basically declare Marshall in DC. Is probably the next
step of whatever many people are assuming. But they're going
to order federal law enforcement officers to patrol the DC streets.
Speaker 2 (48:41):
We saw this happen in California. We've seen this happen
when Governor Hocal sent National Guard into our subways. It's
just a waste of everybody's time, right he's going to
federalize it. He's going to send all these people. They're
going to sit on the street and stare at their
phone and have nothing to you. And no one will
(49:02):
be better off for it, and it will be like
Trump's big power grab, but it won't do anything, and
it's just incredibly wasteful and stupid and makes no sense.
And he'll do it.
Speaker 3 (49:17):
You say, no one will be better off for it.
But candy Crush is going to make a lot of money.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
Candy Crush, Instagram. Those are the things that will benefit
tech companies, will TikTok, because you know TikTok, the Chinese
government will.
Speaker 5 (49:34):
Make some money.
Speaker 4 (49:35):
Oracle Larry Awesome.
Speaker 2 (49:37):
Merry Christmas to all whose help. 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.
Speaker 5 (49:52):
Of all this chaos.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
If you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a
friend and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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