November 22, 2025 • 38 mins
Evil Geniuses author Kurt Andersen examines Trump’s alarming statement that Democrats should be hanged. Aftyn Behn details her run for Congress in a swing district in Tennessee.
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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 a majority of Americans have a
negative view of billionaires spending more money to buy elections,
according to a Washington Post IPSOS poll. We have such
a great show for you today. Author of Evil Geniuses
(00:22):
Kurt Anderson stops by to talk about Trump, saying the
Democrats should be hung. Then we'll talk to Aten ben
about her run for Congress in a swing district in Tennessee.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
But first the news, Milly. Let's remember the Heritage Foundation
are not known for being very woke. They wrote Project
twenty twenty five and particularly they really really really do
not like immigration. Guess what. They're not happy with mister Trump.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Yeah, they are not happy with mister Trump. This is
a really interesting phenomenon because we talk a lot about
the Trump administration being bad at what they do. We
don't talk a lot about the Trump administration being so
bad at what they do that it being the only
(01:10):
thing standing between us and complete disaster. This is extremely important.
The Trump administration is being blasted by the Heritage Foundation
for how little they're deporting people and we see this
with Christy Gnome, is that they're very interested in the
optics of deportation, but they're not so interested in the
actual deportation. And so we find ourselves in a moment
(01:36):
where the only thing that is helping us, the poor,
sad American people who are being pretty much we're sort
of victims of this Republican admin is the fact that
this crew is really bad at what they do. And
in fact, it's like an amazing thing, what Heritage says.
And by the way, I am in no way endorsing Heritage, really,
(01:57):
you me certainly not says. I mean, this is like
some good writing. I respect good writing. The American people
voted for mass deportations, they're getting mass communications instead, ha ha.
Mike cow the Poet Laureate of the Heritage Foundation, Samali.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
One of the things I think is funniest about the
Trump administration is basically, since like let's call it day two,
they've been like, we need a little patience with this economy.
Yesterday we had JD. Van saying the thing that I
had asked for the American people is a little bit
of patience. Why do we need patients? Because Crypto, which
apparently our whole economy is built.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
On now pretty much.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
It wiped out four hundred billion dollars in wealth this week.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I am just completely shocked that crypto is so unstable.
You know how many people we've had on this podcast
where they've been like, you know, crypto's just a scam.
And by the way, I say this to my husband,
who's very smart, I said, crypto is basically a scam, right,
and he goes, well, so is the dollar. So I mean,
I guess you could go back and say that.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
You're not doing well in your argument with it's what about.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
ISA, Yeah, exactly, though we like it. It's not just
Bitcoin though, virtually all coins. All of these fake currencies
are crashing at the same time. So it turns out
I wonder how trump coin is doing. I'm sure trump
coin is much much more stable because it's backed by
the United States of Trome our King.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
I was going to say, for as long as the
Saudias are making money on oil, I feel like it's
a little more stable than many others.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Now, all of these coins are crashing because they're and
and by the way, let's just add in someone who
knows what they're talking about. This unlimited fun. CEO Bob
Elliott notes Friday morning, the selloff and bitcoin is mirroring
recent weakness and stocks with much more extreme action because
it's so unstable. But in fact, this is possibly the
(03:52):
beginning of more of a bear and less of a ball. Mark.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yeah. I can't imagine when you withhold jobs reports, why
people lose faith in the economy and want to hold
their money from silly things. I can't imagine.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
The September jobs came in better than expected. Nobody knows
about October or November, but September good for September. That
was months ago.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Smike. When we last left Speaker of the House Mike Johnson,
he seemed a little shook. I may have made some
disparaging comments about his demeanor. Well, it seems that I
was picking up a cent of lack of confidence because
he's going to make it harder for discharge petitions to happen.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Yeah, so this is like he's so spiteful. I like
his pettiness. First of all, I think let's just remember
that discharge petitions are extremely hard to get past. In fact,
Marjorie Taylor Green during their press conference, said that there
is a four percent chance of getting a discharge petition
which succeeds.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Look at you quoting your best ee.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Oh shut the fuck anyway. But the point is they're
very hard to get to succeed because basically you have
to go around the leadership and they're set up in
a way to have trouble succeeding. Now, Mike Johnson is
pretty mad because he got God right, like Thomas Massey
and Rocan were able to get him. They were able
(05:09):
to get this piece of legislation around him, and now
he's he's salty, he's bitter, he's mad. And again it's
worth realizing, like Mike Johnson is not good at this.
Mike Johnson got this job because Donald Trump needed someone
who would just sign off on all his bullshit, right,
because there were other people who were in line for
this job who were insufficiently sycophantic, and those guys did
(05:32):
not get this job. And so we find ourselves in
this situation. I think that it is very stupid that
Mike Johnson wants to go after discharge petitions. Now, Mike
Johnson is also doing this because he he's the writing
on the wall Hall. This is like such a function
of him being a bad leader. There's another discharge petition
(05:53):
that just hit the two hundred and eighteen signature threshold.
You have to like basically a veto provement. It's not
quite a mutail proof for Jori, but you need to
have two hundred and eighteen. You have to have quite
a lot of Congressmen sign on to this in order
to work. And now there's another one. A discharge petition
is two hundred and eighteen and it's led by Jared Golden.
(06:14):
Jared Golden is this rural Democrat who's not running again.
He is very concerned with working people, and so it
would restore union rights for thousands of federal workers. It
has only and again this is important to realize and
also a function of Mike Johnson. Only seven discharge petitions
(06:36):
have successfully signed into law since nineteen thirty five, but
three of them have come in just last two years.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Wild So you might remember Trump's loyalty question for federal workers.
Federal workers are now asking a judge to block them
on their application questions. Because you'll be shocked here, this
is pretty fucking silly.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
This is like not what we do in this country.
And this is one of the problems that Trump World
has is that they're constantly trying to figure out a
way to do like these like low key authoritarian things
in an American democracy. And this is a great example
of how it doesn't work for them, Like there is
(07:16):
no world in which judges are going to be like, yes,
you can do loyalty oaths and again like this is
a problem with Trump World, is that they constantly are
trying to do things that are like not within the
norms and institutions. Kurt Anderson is the author of Evil
(07:37):
Geniuses and Fantasyland. At Kurt Anderson him Molly, I'm going
to read you a quote about hanging democrats. Let's start
with this Reuters. This is a tweet from Ed o'keith
at CBS per Reuters all caps. Trump does not want
to execute members of Congress, Comma white House says, discuss.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Well and in their in their walk backs, such as
they were from miss Levitt on it's it's always been no.
But which is to say, you know they were, Yes,
they were basically traders and horrible is as awful.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
First of all, so this comes from Donald Trump saying
retweeting tweets that said he wanted to x write it
is this from a retweet or is this from well
he said.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
He said they were seditious and treasonous. These senators and
congress people got together who who were military veterans, some
of them veterans, saying, you know, we're just reminding everybody
in the service and they are all trained on this
from you know, not just officers, but enlisted people that
(08:47):
you know, there are such a thing as illegal orders
and you are obliged not to follow them. Now, So
that's how they were doing, and you know, you know, good,
all right, and and he wasn't saying, you know the
thing And then the thing is about that McCallum on
Fox which you're interviewing Jason Crow said, well, there were
any specifics, what were your specifics that they should disobey,
(09:10):
Which is just a stupid question on so many levels,
because of course they're not going to say and here
are the specific things that Trump may do that you
should disobey the words so and if it said well
the specifics of like maybe you should rethink, maybe you're
going to be in trouble for blowing up these random
votes in the Caribbean, that would be worse, much worse,
(09:31):
and interfer you with an ongoing military operation. So anyway,
it's ridiculous, it won't happen. It's just it's just more dangerous,
extreme crazy bullshit that it could indeed inspire.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Someone someone to do something really bad, to.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Do something terrible. It is one more thing that we
are supposed to jump at and go, oh, my god.
And of course, in this case, because it is in
the realm of to me, his most horrific and frightening instincts,
which you know, we must take literally as well curiously,
which is this militarization of American life and American politics,
(10:08):
an American governance, and American everything else. He is serious
about that, obviously. And so this particular thing isn't going
to happen anytime soon. But it shouldn't it by itself,
as seeing I should not have a long life as
a thing we talk about.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
I want to direct you though, to the idea here,
which is that members of Congress who served in the
military did this video saying don't do a legal stuff
you're not supposed to, which seems like an obvious kind
of thing, but is very necessary when Trump is operating
the federal government and Donald Trump says it's edition the
(10:45):
answer to sedition would be not now. But it used
to be that that was a crime punished by punishable
by some kind of military execution. And Trump is saying
this because he's angry. Now. I wonder if you could
talk about the world in which a person like this
(11:06):
comes from, because you have covered this world nauseum, especially
during the time that Donald Trump was becoming Donald Trump.
It feels like something from someone who has studied at
the foot of a guy called roy Cone.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Absolutely, And I was thinking of somebody else connected or
at loose to contemporary roy Cones when I was thinking
about Trump and this stuff today, which is who that
will get into our other conversation.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
That I think, you know, wait on Moley, but be
scary was really effectively part of the roy Cone advice,
along with deny and attack, attack and all those things.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
But be as scary as you can. And so I
mean he has said before. I mean, this is really
not the first time he's gone to these places like
General Millie that you know, Charmer and the Joint Chiefs.
Under Trump in his first term he has said should
be hung as a trader. And this the other thing
about this, it's not new that he does this. What's new,
(12:04):
of course, is the last ten months where he's sending
ice certainly and also uniform military people into cities to
hang around, to scare, to show he's a strong man.
So I barely want to get into the political ramifications
of him doing this, which is to say, well, well,
it won't this drive some people that think like he
(12:24):
is not we've got to get rid of him. Maybe,
but we'll see. I don't know, but it is. It is,
as you say, it's purely his angry thing. He saw
this video. It's a well made, serious ad short and
to the point, doesn't mention him, doesn't mention this administration,
doesn't mention any specific things that this administration has done
(12:48):
in terms of sending military in the cities or blowing
up random boats that are ostensibly drug traffickers boats. But
it goes without saying so, and that he knew, he
understood where it was coming from, and I'm sure he
understood how potent it is, how affective, how these National
Security CIA veteran people from Lysislock into Mark Kelly and
(13:12):
Jason Crow and all the rest are really effective, you know,
non weak, non left wing democratic lunatics in any sense speakers,
so he felt it and good. I'm glad he did,
because it's it's a good thing. And again it was
whoever came up with this idea to me, among those Democrats,
(13:34):
it was brilliant, brilliantly conceived and brilliantly done.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
So let's talk about the origin story of trump Ism
for a minute, because we find our man in, you know,
obsessed with cats, obsessed with Phantom of the Opera, obsessed
with the world, and which he comes oh.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Interesting, interesting choices, which is you know, and I don't
want to get into any kind of homophobia on this,
but it is, it is these theory is important. And
indeed this kind of strong man view of I am King,
which you know, back in the day it's my magazine,
we used to make fun of him for imagining a
(14:12):
kind of kingly superhero, among other things, you know. And
I think of his origins and coming of age in
the nineteen seventy sixties and seventy eighties, and I think
of the dictators of the time, the people who actually
did do these you know, send in and execute people
who shoot down protesters and all those things. I think
of their esthetic because of what he's done in these
(14:34):
last weeks and months of tearing down the East wing
and putting up this, and putting up these gold do
dads all over the Oval office, and now putting up
gold dude ads in his new residential Hall of Fame
on the west Wind Colonnade, which is insane on many levels.
But it's in addition to itsself moarification. You know this,
(14:56):
this shiny golden metal sign and the shiny golden do
dads around the portraits of presidents. And by the way,
why do you a need it b need to call
it a hall of fame? Well, presidents are all famous.
I could go on, but it is so typical of
these kinds of Middle Eastern Southwest Asian worldwide, the dictators
(15:19):
who build giant palaces to themselves, right, and you know
the esthetic of the super gold rococo shiny golden thing
is his esthetic. You know. Look, from the beginning eighties
is when we started spy magacine. Right, apologies for ranting,
but it's it's you're treating me into my into recovered memories.
(15:40):
But you know he finishes Trump Tower eighty four, moves
into his incredibly lavishly golden, cheesy vulgar triplex which is
one of the one of the main sources of what
we started calling him again and again and again and
again back in spy Magacine, which is short fingered Bulgarian
(16:02):
Donald Trump. Right, it is this eighties rich guy of
a certain kind, of a certain old you know, it's
not just Long Island, but you know Long Island Queen's kind.
And you know he buys mar A lago In at
eighty five and starts, you know, tarting it up more
he becomes. And this is the thing I always have
(16:23):
thought about him. In connection to this gets back to
the Roy Kohane connection is Liberaci. You may be too young,
Molly to remember Rocchi, but he was this extraordinary Las
Vegas pianist singer who had been famous for decades, really
famous at a really big Vegas star and incredibly campy,
(16:45):
and of course was not an out gay man, but
was a high league gay man, you know, big hair,
new and fancy clothes and gold and everything. Played a
golden piano on stage. I encourage any listeners who don't
know who he is to get images of him and
his surroundings and ooling and interiors. It's very Donald Trump.
(17:09):
It is extremely Donald Trump. He died in nineteen eighty seven,
right shortly before he died as as by the way,
as Roy con was also dying, Trump went out of
his way to become friends with him, gave him a
condo at Trump Tower, went shopping with him. I mean
they were buddies, shopping buddies, and you know, and again
not just to say, oh he's vulgar, Well he is,
(17:31):
but it also has struck me all along and in
the Trump presidency, says part of his authentic seeming connection
to a large part of his builder base is this.
I know it's elite of me.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
But rich. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
It's one bit of popular authentic populism. Yeah, cheesy taste.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
Right.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
So anyway back to strong men, and they're aesthetic, you know,
I think of the the Golden Palace dictators who are
what happens to them? Then oh they're deposed and they're
good regime.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Right. But I'm gonna I'm gonna prevent you from going there,
and just we're going to just talk about for a
minute what the sort of mentality is. So we have
a seventy nineyear old Donald Trump. He comes from Roy Cohen,
he comes from a world of when they attack you,
you punch back twice as hard because you're a gangster, right,
(18:28):
because you're a gangster. So I wonder, you know, clearly
this is not working on a broader scale. We see
this in America, right, they just got creamed in the
twenty twenty five cycle. We'd see you know, people like
Marjorie Taylor Green going like, maybe this is not what
I signed up for. Like this strikes me as the
(18:49):
sort of third act of this play. So I wonder
if you could inform us with some of the things
that happened in the first act that you think might
in some way shed a light on how this goes.
I mean, my man is seventy nine, it's been along,
(19:09):
you know, the last forty plus years have been rough
for all of us.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Well, in the first act, I mean he again he
was who he is then in terms of the bully,
the lies, the gaudiness, the exaggerations beyond anything imaginable. All
that in his first act ended with his bankruptcies and
(19:37):
being close to personal bankruptcy. But certainly, you know, bankrupting
several of his casino businesses. So it ended with that,
and he was caned out of the picture. Except as
a guy who would attach his name to, you know,
apartment complexes around the country until he got his TV show,
which was of course, his The Apprentice, which was his
(19:58):
second act. So he went down and he was real,
He really went down. And you know, in a more
you know, an easily alter timeline, he would have disappeared
in the nineties and oughts, and you know, he was
Whatever happened to Donald Trump would be a thing said
in this century. It worked out differently because of reality TV,
(20:18):
which is, you know, in a larger sense, one of
the horrors of our age.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Do you think do you think the original sin of
trump Ism is reality television?
Speaker 3 (20:29):
I think reality television was doing bad things to American culture.
That was part of the softening up the ground for
Donald Trump too, finally, after flirting with and saying he
was gonna run for president in nineteen eighty eight, in
ninety two, and ninety six, in two thousand, like he
(20:49):
was part of the softening up the ground to allow
that to happen and take place. Sure, the blurring of
reality and fiction into an indistinguishable mess was and and
was part of it, as was the ultimate American thing
which had started decades before which is being famous for
(21:10):
being famous. He became famous for being famous. He never Yeah,
he built a couple of buildings in the nineteen eighties,
you know, as New York was coming out of his bankruptcy.
Well good for him, but that's what he did. I mean,
you know, you know at starting with any who, you know,
he did it for nothing, well virtually nothing, four hundred
million dollars back then, which was a lot of money.
Speaker 5 (21:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
But reality TV is you know, made him what he
used today and even beyond that terrible piece of collateral
damage of reality television was from from when it started
at the very turn of the century through this century,
but especially those first ten to fifteen years of this century,
you know, of net very bad thing for America. I
(21:53):
had no problems with, say The Bachelorette, but right, yeah,
you know reality TV is no good.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Yeah it's true.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
But before you let me go, I have I have
to give you my my again my or my full
reverie on the strong Man and what happens to them
and if so, if this is the third act, and
and and what I hope will happen, what I believe
will happen, is he will leave office and be more
of an angry lame duck as the three years gone.
(22:22):
God knows what he will do in the meantime as
he acts out and slips into whatever mental neurological abyss
he's He has always been on the precipice up, but
he will be out. However, there are many worst case
scenarios about how this might and could all end. And
again I don't hope that it ends in any any
(22:42):
way but the normal, constitutional, lawful way. But I think
just in terms of a I don't know, almost fictional, novelistic,
poetic parallel about these other strong men with their palaces
in Saddan, who's saying when you know fell and we
had weeks of looking at these golden palaces and Kada
after him and Assad a year ago. Almost now we're
(23:03):
almost at the anniversary of Asad being driven from what
his palace is by his army failing to protect him
in his government regime.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Colepsic, Kurt Anderson, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Jin Ben represents the fifty first district of Tennessee's House
of Representatives since twenty twenty three and is running in
the twenty twenty five special election for Tennessee's fourths congressional district.
So welcome to Fast Politics.
Speaker 6 (23:32):
Thank you. It's excited to be here.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
We're excited to have you. So talk to me about
your race, what you're running for.
Speaker 5 (23:39):
Yeah, So this is for a special congressional election in Tennessee,
the Tennessee seventh. It is the last flippable red to
blue district in the entire country. For your listeners and
your audience, Nashville was a consolidated Democratic district and following
redistricting efforts in twenty twenty, they cut it up into
three Republican.
Speaker 6 (23:57):
Districts and this is one of those.
Speaker 5 (23:59):
And so the opportunity is in front of us in
that this is an R plus twenty district and we
have been able to close the margin, shrink the margins
by six points, which was last month, and our early
vote data is coming back and it shows us within
four points.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Wow. Yeah, that's crazy. So how did you do that?
Speaker 5 (24:21):
It's an amalgamation of things. One, the momentum, right, So,
two weeks ago we saw Democrats running on affordability be
successful across the country, talking about issues that relate to
the cost of living. In the chaos of Washington, and
on that momentum we've seen just so much interest in
a state like Tennessee. Too, is that I'm a community organizer,
and so I spent the last decade building the ecosystem
(24:43):
and infrastructure we need to leverage to actually win elections
in this state. And so I was the indivisible organizer
for three years in Tennessee and built all these indivisible
groups that are now knocking do orders and contacting voters
to get us cross the finish line. And then three
is the Republican agenda. Economic agenda has not delivered for
working people in Tennessee. And there's a lot of fragmentation
(25:05):
and fracturing we're seeing right now with the Republican Party.
And I think people are very sick of the chaos
of Washington and the cost of living, and they're giving
a candidate like me a.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Chance unbelievably cool, like I'm even without words. So you
started these invisible groups, so you people know you in
Tennessee and activists know you, and just explain to us
how it works, because I think people don't quite understand
how you can do something like this.
Speaker 5 (25:33):
When Trump was elected the first time, I decided to
move back to my home state of Tennessee, and I
got a community organizing job.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Wow. I want to pause for a second because like,
I don't know, did you ever know like the Arena
that group the Arena, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. They
used to always say like go back to where you're from.
And around Trump's election the first time, I too had
that same kind of thing where I was like, holy shit,
my whole life, like how did I let this happen?
(26:00):
So anyway, so talk us to what happened then.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (26:03):
So I was actually working at the un when Trump
was elected or just come off a contract in Europe
and decided to move back to Tennessee, and my parents
were super upset, and I was like, mom, dad, I
want to get involved in Tennessee politics. And my mom
so upset she had to be escorted out of the restaurant.
And the job I got was for a nonprofit law
firm that just got money to hire an organizer because
of the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid cuts the twenty
(26:25):
seventh Medicaid fight, so I was out in the hollers
of the seventh District raising awareness about Medicaid cuts to
rural hospitals, talking to public healthcare officials about what would
happen if subsidies for the Affordable Care Act or cut
lo and behold, it feels like groundhog Day because now
those cuts are actualized through the passage of the Big
Ugly Bill, which is why I decided to jump into
(26:47):
this race. But the important I think art here, especially
in the South, is we've experienced historic disinvestment because oftentimes
funding at the national level is tethered to progressive electoral outcomes, right,
but in a stately we're oppressively jerrymanderd there's anti and
we live in under an anti democratic regime.
Speaker 6 (27:06):
It's hard to have those types of wins.
Speaker 5 (27:07):
But this election, in my campaign, is a testament to
all of that base building that we've been doing the
past decade to get to a place where we are
out organizing our opposition. And it is incredible to watch.
And now this is a twenty point race, now a
four point race.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
And it makes sense because if you think about like
those numbers in New Jersey and in Virginia, we saw
shifts that were that big.
Speaker 5 (27:33):
Yeah, even more and I and and in Tennessee there
hasn't been competitive races, right, So like everything is going
our way, and I would not be going across the
state losing sleep to tell folks that we are ten
points behind because.
Speaker 6 (27:46):
We are so close, like we are so close to
quitting this.
Speaker 5 (27:49):
And it would send a message to Washington that people
are done, they're fed up, We've had enough, We're tired
of begging for crumbs, and it's time to send a
message to the federal administration as we is, our Republican
super majority that y'all have y'all not delivered for working
families in Tennessee.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
When is this special election? Special elections are weird? Who
is it for?
Speaker 5 (28:09):
I'm gonna ask you to do your own research about
Representative Mark Green. But the representative there was some nefarious
activity and then he decided to take a corporate job
and left Congress after.
Speaker 6 (28:23):
Voting for the Big Ugly bill.
Speaker 5 (28:24):
So he left in August or July August, and it
thus catalyzed a special election in Tennessee.
Speaker 6 (28:31):
And it's the last red blue district in the entire country.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
So that is amazing. And who is your challenger and
what does the race look like?
Speaker 5 (28:40):
Yeah, so I'm a pissed off social worker. I'm a
social worker turned community organizer and now a state legislator.
I represent Nashville, which is some of my district is
overlaps with the congressional district. And my opponent has basically
been groomed for this moment. He is a West Point grad.
He served a few terms in Iraq. You know, he's
not the issue, it's the people behind him. He's a
(29:01):
puppet to the puppet masters of the universe. And I
think what's become increasingly clear in this race is one
the impact of dark interest special interest money bolstering his
name ID to get him across the finish line in
the Republican primary, and then right now the Republicans have
spent almost a million dollars or over a million dollars
in our race when they didn't want to be pulled
down to this fight. So it just shows you how
(29:22):
much we're outworking them, out organizing them, and they only
can respond with, you know, the commercials about me, which
you'll see them eventually, but that's all they have. And
while we're knocking doors, you know, they're sending texts comparing
me to Nancy Pelosi, and it just doesn't hit in
the same way that it used to.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
And ten years ago that is wild, but also it
sounds like the district is actually like pretty urban.
Speaker 6 (29:43):
It's tricky.
Speaker 5 (29:44):
I mean, these districts were designed to be uncompetitive, right to.
Speaker 6 (29:48):
Be districts, but their overreach.
Speaker 5 (29:51):
The district includes the highest turnout precincts in Davidson County,
which is Nashville, and then it goes all the way
up to the Kentucky border and includes our purple County Montgomery,
which is where Fort Campbell is there's a lot of
veteran families, and then all the way down to the
Alabama border. But there it includes a few counties where
there are large concentrations of Democrats. So this is just
a mobilization race. It's who can get their people out
(30:12):
to vote. And there was reporting showing following the Republican
primary the Republican turnout is down eighty percent.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Wow, I've seen other statistics that say that. And also
because it's as special and it's at a weird time,
you're not going to have the same low frequency voters. Right.
Speaker 5 (30:31):
Our polling shows that for the most motivated voters in
this race were virtually tied.
Speaker 6 (30:35):
It's fifty to fifty.
Speaker 5 (30:36):
So the people who say ten out of time, I'm
going to vote, it's fifty to fifty. It's the ones
that are the sporadic voters that need more information, that
need an extra boost to get to the polls.
Speaker 6 (30:46):
But because this has become a.
Speaker 5 (30:47):
Nationalized race, a lot of voters are receiving postcards, they're
getting phone bangs from across the country, and I knew
this is exactly what would happen, and it is. It
is materializing in a big way, and it's getting our
people to the polls, which is what's going to win
this race.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
If you win, what would that make the numbers in
this Congress.
Speaker 6 (31:06):
Yeah, the margin's very close.
Speaker 5 (31:08):
I don't know the exact number, but obviously I think
Speaker Johnson's margin is within three or four. And there's
analyzes that I've read that said that it would It
would just totally. I mean, it would undermine whatever power
he has right now, just because another addition to the
to the minority is not helpful for him. So more importantly,
I mean, winning in a Trump twenty.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
District would be the message that.
Speaker 6 (31:32):
It's over, Like it is over.
Speaker 5 (31:34):
This political project that you've been working on for forty
fifty years is culminating right now. It's not delivering in
the way it's supposed to be delivering unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
If you go to Congress now, you'd be in the minority,
which is of course the worst, as everyone says, But
there are opportunities. And like, I'm not just saying this
because I like Robert Garcia, but I think Robert Garcia
on oversight has done a really good job. And like,
because everything is so crazy right now, there are actually
opportunities to do things. I'd love you to sort of
(32:05):
talk about what you feel like you could do in Congress.
Speaker 5 (32:07):
Steve in the minority, Well, I have experienced because I'm
a state legislator and a Republican TRIFECTUS super minority and
a ninety nine per body there are twenty two of us.
In fact, we could leave the state and they could
go on legislating without us. That's how little power you have.
All I'm used to that, and I have actually been able.
I've been very successful. Actually passed a bill of a
(32:27):
partisan bill my first year as a freshman lawmaker, and
two organizing so I use my legislative seats to file
legislation that may not be passed the first time. It
creates a vehicle for me to organize. And so in Tennessee,
we have one of the highest grocery tax rates in
the country, plationary cost of groceries in the country, and I,
(32:48):
with my colleague in the state Senate, ran a bill
to end the grocery tax by closing corporate tax loopholes.
And for the past three years, that is all I've
been doing is organizing around it, and it has really
shifted the paradigm one towards economic justice and a conversation
about corporate power. And that's what I would do in Congress,
is I would file legislation that obviously resonates with my district,
but then use it to organize and build the constituency
(33:11):
and the coalition I need to then maintain a rplus
twenty seat in next November.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Yeah, this is a moment where those numbers don't mean
what they used to mean, especially after that twenty twenty
five cycle, like things could be very different, right.
Speaker 5 (33:26):
Yeah, and especially once again in a state like Tennessee
that has is not a battleground state, so there's not
a lot of money spent it is we've been kind
of left behind, and I think this race speaks to that,
in which you have this political project of the Republican
trifacta at all levels, and once again they are not
They're not fulfilling the commitments they made to Tennessee. And
(33:48):
so I think what we have tried to do on
this campaign is to build a coalition of the disenchanted,
build a coalition of.
Speaker 6 (33:54):
The pissed off.
Speaker 5 (33:55):
If you are upset about the chaos and Washington and
the cost of living, I am your candidate, and I
will never fight for the puppet masters. I will always
fight for the people in my district. And that message
is absolutely resonating. The other thing I'll say is, I mean,
as a lot of other states are in an affordability crisis.
We can't afford rent, we can't afford utilities, we can't
afford groceries and healthcare. And so as a healthcare organizer,
(34:17):
as someone who's always fought to make healthcare more affordable
in the state, the paradigm is shifting for I think,
especially Republican and maybe independent leaning voters to say, you
know what, like you all have been advocating and lobbing
against the Affordable Care Acts for a decade, and like,
what do you have to show for it? You don't
have any solutions, and that's what my opponent is offering
is a whole pile of nothing.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Oh yeah, there's something really cool about people moving back
to where they're from. Can you talk for a minute
about the experience of moving back to where you're from.
Speaker 5 (34:47):
I was someone who always wanted to get out of
East Tennessee, and I think I had a reckoning like
a lot of people November of twenty sixteen, not recognizing
the place I came from. I mean, I had a
wonderful childhood. I loved growing up in East Tennessee. I
love Appalachia, and I didn't understand why this state had
(35:08):
become so hostile and what happened to my community in
which they looked at President Trump as the antidote. And
I think organizing across Tennessee and Kentucky in the South
for the past ten years, it's provided a glimpse into that,
into an answer, which is people feel like the status
quo is not working. It is not working for that
and I think, you know, last election was one about
(35:29):
those that believe the institutions we have are working for
them and those that aren't. And I'm a candidate who
has always checked power. I have someone that is always
I'm not the chosen candidate by any party, and I'm
someone that has always just used the golden rule and
always centered the most impacted in my policymaking and my organizing.
Speaker 6 (35:50):
And I think that's coming across, which is why my
Republican opposition.
Speaker 5 (35:53):
Right now is having such a hard time kind of
pinning me to a wall and navigating this race.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Yeah, I'm sure that's true, and it has got to
be really interesting running for this race. When is your
election and just give us a little more about what
people can do for you.
Speaker 5 (36:10):
Early votings started last Wednesday and it goes until the
twenty sixth, and then the election is December second, So
we've got less than two weeks and the election is
December second, And like I said, it would be one
of the most profound upsets in the political upsets in
recent history. And I'm just deeply honored to be the
Democratic nominee at this moment in time and see at
(36:31):
the national level.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Yeah, that's so cool. Well, congratulations, looking forward to seeing
you in Congress.
Speaker 5 (36:40):
Bears Cross's Yeah, it's been a wild ride, but I
never thought I'd be running for Congress in the year
twenty twenty five. But I think this moment demands a
contagious courage and with the skill set to organize through
this crisis, these compounded crises that we're going through, And
I think inspiring thing, is inspiring the next generation to
(37:02):
lead and hopefully will come up behind me and take
back our country.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Yeah all right, well, thank you, thank you, great to
have you. Hopeful to see you soon.
Speaker 5 (37:11):
Pleasure well hopefully well once again, big fan, thanks for
all you do. It's been wonderful watching your ascendants. So
just really honored and thanks for covering this moment in time.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
No mo.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
Jesse Cannon smiling.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
You know, nothing says Keystone Cops and just total outright
disregard for the law, like Ice losing Kia evidence one
day after being sued.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Yeah, I mean again, is it Keystone Cops or is
it just dis I mean again, Are they incompetent or
are they corrupt? This is like the game we need
to play in Trump world. Are they incompetent or are
they corrupt? And so four of four media reports said
after ICE's broad View detention center outside of Chicago was
sued October thirtieth for allegedly abusing detainees. The agency said
(38:05):
that two weeks of video footage could not be shown,
could not be found. They wasn't found in the system.
And that's of course where we have it. Of course,
that's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best
(38:25):
minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds. And a majority of Americans have a
negative view of billionaires spending more money to buy elections,
according to a Washington Post IPSOS poll. We have such
a great show for you today. Author of Evil Geniuses
(00:22):
Kurt Anderson stops by to talk about Trump, saying the
Democrats should be hung. Then we'll talk to Aten ben
about her run for Congress in a swing district in Tennessee.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
But first the news, Milly. Let's remember the Heritage Foundation
are not known for being very woke. They wrote Project
twenty twenty five and particularly they really really really do
not like immigration. Guess what. They're not happy with mister Trump.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Yeah, they are not happy with mister Trump. This is
a really interesting phenomenon because we talk a lot about
the Trump administration being bad at what they do. We
don't talk a lot about the Trump administration being so
bad at what they do that it being the only
(01:10):
thing standing between us and complete disaster. This is extremely important.
The Trump administration is being blasted by the Heritage Foundation
for how little they're deporting people and we see this
with Christy Gnome, is that they're very interested in the
optics of deportation, but they're not so interested in the
actual deportation. And so we find ourselves in a moment
(01:36):
where the only thing that is helping us, the poor,
sad American people who are being pretty much we're sort
of victims of this Republican admin is the fact that
this crew is really bad at what they do. And
in fact, it's like an amazing thing, what Heritage says.
And by the way, I am in no way endorsing Heritage, really,
(01:57):
you me certainly not says. I mean, this is like
some good writing. I respect good writing. The American people
voted for mass deportations, they're getting mass communications instead, ha ha.
Mike cow the Poet Laureate of the Heritage Foundation, Samali.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
One of the things I think is funniest about the
Trump administration is basically, since like let's call it day two,
they've been like, we need a little patience with this economy.
Yesterday we had JD. Van saying the thing that I
had asked for the American people is a little bit
of patience. Why do we need patients? Because Crypto, which
apparently our whole economy is built.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
On now pretty much.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
It wiped out four hundred billion dollars in wealth this week.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I am just completely shocked that crypto is so unstable.
You know how many people we've had on this podcast
where they've been like, you know, crypto's just a scam.
And by the way, I say this to my husband,
who's very smart, I said, crypto is basically a scam, right,
and he goes, well, so is the dollar. So I mean,
I guess you could go back and say that.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
You're not doing well in your argument with it's what about.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
ISA, Yeah, exactly, though we like it. It's not just
Bitcoin though, virtually all coins. All of these fake currencies
are crashing at the same time. So it turns out
I wonder how trump coin is doing. I'm sure trump
coin is much much more stable because it's backed by
the United States of Trome our King.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
I was going to say, for as long as the
Saudias are making money on oil, I feel like it's
a little more stable than many others.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Now, all of these coins are crashing because they're and
and by the way, let's just add in someone who
knows what they're talking about. This unlimited fun. CEO Bob
Elliott notes Friday morning, the selloff and bitcoin is mirroring
recent weakness and stocks with much more extreme action because
it's so unstable. But in fact, this is possibly the
(03:52):
beginning of more of a bear and less of a ball. Mark.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yeah. I can't imagine when you withhold jobs reports, why
people lose faith in the economy and want to hold
their money from silly things. I can't imagine.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
The September jobs came in better than expected. Nobody knows
about October or November, but September good for September. That
was months ago.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
Smike. When we last left Speaker of the House Mike Johnson,
he seemed a little shook. I may have made some
disparaging comments about his demeanor. Well, it seems that I
was picking up a cent of lack of confidence because
he's going to make it harder for discharge petitions to happen.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Yeah, so this is like he's so spiteful. I like
his pettiness. First of all, I think let's just remember
that discharge petitions are extremely hard to get past. In fact,
Marjorie Taylor Green during their press conference, said that there
is a four percent chance of getting a discharge petition
which succeeds.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
Look at you quoting your best ee.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Oh shut the fuck anyway. But the point is they're
very hard to get to succeed because basically you have
to go around the leadership and they're set up in
a way to have trouble succeeding. Now, Mike Johnson is
pretty mad because he got God right, like Thomas Massey
and Rocan were able to get him. They were able
(05:09):
to get this piece of legislation around him, and now
he's he's salty, he's bitter, he's mad. And again it's
worth realizing, like Mike Johnson is not good at this.
Mike Johnson got this job because Donald Trump needed someone
who would just sign off on all his bullshit, right,
because there were other people who were in line for
this job who were insufficiently sycophantic, and those guys did
(05:32):
not get this job. And so we find ourselves in
this situation. I think that it is very stupid that
Mike Johnson wants to go after discharge petitions. Now, Mike
Johnson is also doing this because he he's the writing
on the wall Hall. This is like such a function
of him being a bad leader. There's another discharge petition
(05:53):
that just hit the two hundred and eighteen signature threshold.
You have to like basically a veto provement. It's not
quite a mutail proof for Jori, but you need to
have two hundred and eighteen. You have to have quite
a lot of Congressmen sign on to this in order
to work. And now there's another one. A discharge petition
is two hundred and eighteen and it's led by Jared Golden.
(06:14):
Jared Golden is this rural Democrat who's not running again.
He is very concerned with working people, and so it
would restore union rights for thousands of federal workers. It
has only and again this is important to realize and
also a function of Mike Johnson. Only seven discharge petitions
(06:36):
have successfully signed into law since nineteen thirty five, but
three of them have come in just last two years.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Wild So you might remember Trump's loyalty question for federal workers.
Federal workers are now asking a judge to block them
on their application questions. Because you'll be shocked here, this
is pretty fucking silly.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
This is like not what we do in this country.
And this is one of the problems that Trump World
has is that they're constantly trying to figure out a
way to do like these like low key authoritarian things
in an American democracy. And this is a great example
of how it doesn't work for them, Like there is
(07:16):
no world in which judges are going to be like, yes,
you can do loyalty oaths and again like this is
a problem with Trump World, is that they constantly are
trying to do things that are like not within the
norms and institutions. Kurt Anderson is the author of Evil
(07:37):
Geniuses and Fantasyland. At Kurt Anderson him Molly, I'm going
to read you a quote about hanging democrats. Let's start
with this Reuters. This is a tweet from Ed o'keith
at CBS per Reuters all caps. Trump does not want
to execute members of Congress, Comma white House says, discuss.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Well and in their in their walk backs, such as
they were from miss Levitt on it's it's always been no.
But which is to say, you know they were, Yes,
they were basically traders and horrible is as awful.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
First of all, so this comes from Donald Trump saying
retweeting tweets that said he wanted to x write it
is this from a retweet or is this from well
he said.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
He said they were seditious and treasonous. These senators and
congress people got together who who were military veterans, some
of them veterans, saying, you know, we're just reminding everybody
in the service and they are all trained on this
from you know, not just officers, but enlisted people that
(08:47):
you know, there are such a thing as illegal orders
and you are obliged not to follow them. Now, So
that's how they were doing, and you know, you know, good,
all right, and and he wasn't saying, you know the
thing And then the thing is about that McCallum on
Fox which you're interviewing Jason Crow said, well, there were
any specifics, what were your specifics that they should disobey,
(09:10):
Which is just a stupid question on so many levels,
because of course they're not going to say and here
are the specific things that Trump may do that you
should disobey the words so and if it said well
the specifics of like maybe you should rethink, maybe you're
going to be in trouble for blowing up these random
votes in the Caribbean, that would be worse, much worse,
(09:31):
and interfer you with an ongoing military operation. So anyway,
it's ridiculous, it won't happen. It's just it's just more dangerous,
extreme crazy bullshit that it could indeed inspire.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Someone someone to do something really bad, to.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Do something terrible. It is one more thing that we
are supposed to jump at and go, oh, my god.
And of course, in this case, because it is in
the realm of to me, his most horrific and frightening instincts,
which you know, we must take literally as well curiously,
which is this militarization of American life and American politics,
(10:08):
an American governance, and American everything else. He is serious
about that, obviously. And so this particular thing isn't going
to happen anytime soon. But it shouldn't it by itself,
as seeing I should not have a long life as
a thing we talk about.
Speaker 1 (10:23):
I want to direct you though, to the idea here,
which is that members of Congress who served in the
military did this video saying don't do a legal stuff
you're not supposed to, which seems like an obvious kind
of thing, but is very necessary when Trump is operating
the federal government and Donald Trump says it's edition the
(10:45):
answer to sedition would be not now. But it used
to be that that was a crime punished by punishable
by some kind of military execution. And Trump is saying
this because he's angry. Now. I wonder if you could
talk about the world in which a person like this
(11:06):
comes from, because you have covered this world nauseum, especially
during the time that Donald Trump was becoming Donald Trump.
It feels like something from someone who has studied at
the foot of a guy called roy Cone.
Speaker 3 (11:20):
Absolutely, And I was thinking of somebody else connected or
at loose to contemporary roy Cones when I was thinking
about Trump and this stuff today, which is who that
will get into our other conversation.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
That I think, you know, wait on Moley, but be
scary was really effectively part of the roy Cone advice,
along with deny and attack, attack and all those things.
Speaker 3 (11:42):
But be as scary as you can. And so I
mean he has said before. I mean, this is really
not the first time he's gone to these places like
General Millie that you know, Charmer and the Joint Chiefs.
Under Trump in his first term he has said should
be hung as a trader. And this the other thing
about this, it's not new that he does this. What's new,
(12:04):
of course, is the last ten months where he's sending
ice certainly and also uniform military people into cities to
hang around, to scare, to show he's a strong man.
So I barely want to get into the political ramifications
of him doing this, which is to say, well, well,
it won't this drive some people that think like he
(12:24):
is not we've got to get rid of him. Maybe,
but we'll see. I don't know, but it is. It is,
as you say, it's purely his angry thing. He saw
this video. It's a well made, serious ad short and
to the point, doesn't mention him, doesn't mention this administration,
doesn't mention any specific things that this administration has done
(12:48):
in terms of sending military in the cities or blowing
up random boats that are ostensibly drug traffickers boats. But
it goes without saying so, and that he knew, he
understood where it was coming from, and I'm sure he
understood how potent it is, how affective, how these National
Security CIA veteran people from Lysislock into Mark Kelly and
(13:12):
Jason Crow and all the rest are really effective, you know,
non weak, non left wing democratic lunatics in any sense speakers,
so he felt it and good. I'm glad he did,
because it's it's a good thing. And again it was
whoever came up with this idea to me, among those Democrats,
(13:34):
it was brilliant, brilliantly conceived and brilliantly done.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
So let's talk about the origin story of trump Ism
for a minute, because we find our man in, you know,
obsessed with cats, obsessed with Phantom of the Opera, obsessed
with the world, and which he comes oh.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Interesting, interesting choices, which is you know, and I don't
want to get into any kind of homophobia on this,
but it is, it is these theory is important. And
indeed this kind of strong man view of I am King,
which you know, back in the day it's my magazine,
we used to make fun of him for imagining a
(14:12):
kind of kingly superhero, among other things, you know. And
I think of his origins and coming of age in
the nineteen seventy sixties and seventy eighties, and I think
of the dictators of the time, the people who actually
did do these you know, send in and execute people
who shoot down protesters and all those things. I think
of their esthetic because of what he's done in these
(14:34):
last weeks and months of tearing down the East wing
and putting up this, and putting up these gold do
dads all over the Oval office, and now putting up
gold dude ads in his new residential Hall of Fame
on the west Wind Colonnade, which is insane on many levels.
But it's in addition to itsself moarification. You know this,
(14:56):
this shiny golden metal sign and the shiny golden do
dads around the portraits of presidents. And by the way,
why do you a need it b need to call
it a hall of fame? Well, presidents are all famous.
I could go on, but it is so typical of
these kinds of Middle Eastern Southwest Asian worldwide, the dictators
(15:19):
who build giant palaces to themselves, right, and you know
the esthetic of the super gold rococo shiny golden thing
is his esthetic. You know. Look, from the beginning eighties
is when we started spy magacine. Right, apologies for ranting,
but it's it's you're treating me into my into recovered memories.
(15:40):
But you know he finishes Trump Tower eighty four, moves
into his incredibly lavishly golden, cheesy vulgar triplex which is
one of the one of the main sources of what
we started calling him again and again and again and
again back in spy Magacine, which is short fingered Bulgarian
(16:02):
Donald Trump. Right, it is this eighties rich guy of
a certain kind, of a certain old you know, it's
not just Long Island, but you know Long Island Queen's kind.
And you know he buys mar A lago In at
eighty five and starts, you know, tarting it up more
he becomes. And this is the thing I always have
(16:23):
thought about him. In connection to this gets back to
the Roy Kohane connection is Liberaci. You may be too young,
Molly to remember Rocchi, but he was this extraordinary Las
Vegas pianist singer who had been famous for decades, really
famous at a really big Vegas star and incredibly campy,
(16:45):
and of course was not an out gay man, but
was a high league gay man, you know, big hair,
new and fancy clothes and gold and everything. Played a
golden piano on stage. I encourage any listeners who don't
know who he is to get images of him and
his surroundings and ooling and interiors. It's very Donald Trump.
(17:09):
It is extremely Donald Trump. He died in nineteen eighty seven,
right shortly before he died as as by the way,
as Roy con was also dying, Trump went out of
his way to become friends with him, gave him a
condo at Trump Tower, went shopping with him. I mean
they were buddies, shopping buddies, and you know, and again
not just to say, oh he's vulgar, Well he is,
(17:31):
but it also has struck me all along and in
the Trump presidency, says part of his authentic seeming connection
to a large part of his builder base is this.
I know it's elite of me.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
But rich. Yeah, I know.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
It's one bit of popular authentic populism. Yeah, cheesy taste.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
Right.
Speaker 3 (17:55):
So anyway back to strong men, and they're aesthetic, you know,
I think of the the Golden Palace dictators who are
what happens to them? Then oh they're deposed and they're
good regime.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Right. But I'm gonna I'm gonna prevent you from going there,
and just we're going to just talk about for a
minute what the sort of mentality is. So we have
a seventy nineyear old Donald Trump. He comes from Roy Cohen,
he comes from a world of when they attack you,
you punch back twice as hard because you're a gangster, right,
(18:28):
because you're a gangster. So I wonder, you know, clearly
this is not working on a broader scale. We see
this in America, right, they just got creamed in the
twenty twenty five cycle. We'd see you know, people like
Marjorie Taylor Green going like, maybe this is not what
I signed up for. Like this strikes me as the
(18:49):
sort of third act of this play. So I wonder
if you could inform us with some of the things
that happened in the first act that you think might
in some way shed a light on how this goes.
I mean, my man is seventy nine, it's been along,
(19:09):
you know, the last forty plus years have been rough
for all of us.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Well, in the first act, I mean he again he
was who he is then in terms of the bully,
the lies, the gaudiness, the exaggerations beyond anything imaginable. All
that in his first act ended with his bankruptcies and
(19:37):
being close to personal bankruptcy. But certainly, you know, bankrupting
several of his casino businesses. So it ended with that,
and he was caned out of the picture. Except as
a guy who would attach his name to, you know,
apartment complexes around the country until he got his TV show,
which was of course, his The Apprentice, which was his
(19:58):
second act. So he went down and he was real,
He really went down. And you know, in a more
you know, an easily alter timeline, he would have disappeared
in the nineties and oughts, and you know, he was
Whatever happened to Donald Trump would be a thing said
in this century. It worked out differently because of reality TV,
(20:18):
which is, you know, in a larger sense, one of
the horrors of our age.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Do you think do you think the original sin of
trump Ism is reality television?
Speaker 3 (20:29):
I think reality television was doing bad things to American culture.
That was part of the softening up the ground for
Donald Trump too, finally, after flirting with and saying he
was gonna run for president in nineteen eighty eight, in
ninety two, and ninety six, in two thousand, like he
(20:49):
was part of the softening up the ground to allow
that to happen and take place. Sure, the blurring of
reality and fiction into an indistinguishable mess was and and
was part of it, as was the ultimate American thing
which had started decades before which is being famous for
(21:10):
being famous. He became famous for being famous. He never Yeah,
he built a couple of buildings in the nineteen eighties,
you know, as New York was coming out of his bankruptcy.
Well good for him, but that's what he did. I mean,
you know, you know at starting with any who, you know,
he did it for nothing, well virtually nothing, four hundred
million dollars back then, which was a lot of money.
Speaker 5 (21:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
But reality TV is you know, made him what he
used today and even beyond that terrible piece of collateral
damage of reality television was from from when it started
at the very turn of the century through this century,
but especially those first ten to fifteen years of this century,
you know, of net very bad thing for America. I
(21:53):
had no problems with, say The Bachelorette, but right, yeah,
you know reality TV is no good.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
Yeah it's true.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
But before you let me go, I have I have
to give you my my again my or my full
reverie on the strong Man and what happens to them
and if so, if this is the third act, and
and and what I hope will happen, what I believe
will happen, is he will leave office and be more
of an angry lame duck as the three years gone.
(22:22):
God knows what he will do in the meantime as
he acts out and slips into whatever mental neurological abyss
he's He has always been on the precipice up, but
he will be out. However, there are many worst case
scenarios about how this might and could all end. And
again I don't hope that it ends in any any
(22:42):
way but the normal, constitutional, lawful way. But I think
just in terms of a I don't know, almost fictional, novelistic,
poetic parallel about these other strong men with their palaces
in Saddan, who's saying when you know fell and we
had weeks of looking at these golden palaces and Kada
after him and Assad a year ago. Almost now we're
(23:03):
almost at the anniversary of Asad being driven from what
his palace is by his army failing to protect him
in his government regime.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Colepsic, Kurt Anderson, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Jin Ben represents the fifty first district of Tennessee's House
of Representatives since twenty twenty three and is running in
the twenty twenty five special election for Tennessee's fourths congressional district.
So welcome to Fast Politics.
Speaker 6 (23:32):
Thank you. It's excited to be here.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
We're excited to have you. So talk to me about
your race, what you're running for.
Speaker 5 (23:39):
Yeah, So this is for a special congressional election in Tennessee,
the Tennessee seventh. It is the last flippable red to
blue district in the entire country. For your listeners and
your audience, Nashville was a consolidated Democratic district and following
redistricting efforts in twenty twenty, they cut it up into
three Republican.
Speaker 6 (23:57):
Districts and this is one of those.
Speaker 5 (23:59):
And so the opportunity is in front of us in
that this is an R plus twenty district and we
have been able to close the margin, shrink the margins
by six points, which was last month, and our early
vote data is coming back and it shows us within
four points.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Wow. Yeah, that's crazy. So how did you do that?
Speaker 5 (24:21):
It's an amalgamation of things. One, the momentum, right, So,
two weeks ago we saw Democrats running on affordability be
successful across the country, talking about issues that relate to
the cost of living. In the chaos of Washington, and
on that momentum we've seen just so much interest in
a state like Tennessee. Too, is that I'm a community organizer,
and so I spent the last decade building the ecosystem
(24:43):
and infrastructure we need to leverage to actually win elections
in this state. And so I was the indivisible organizer
for three years in Tennessee and built all these indivisible
groups that are now knocking do orders and contacting voters
to get us cross the finish line. And then three
is the Republican agenda. Economic agenda has not delivered for
working people in Tennessee. And there's a lot of fragmentation
(25:05):
and fracturing we're seeing right now with the Republican Party.
And I think people are very sick of the chaos
of Washington and the cost of living, and they're giving
a candidate like me a.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Chance unbelievably cool, like I'm even without words. So you
started these invisible groups, so you people know you in
Tennessee and activists know you, and just explain to us
how it works, because I think people don't quite understand
how you can do something like this.
Speaker 5 (25:33):
When Trump was elected the first time, I decided to
move back to my home state of Tennessee, and I
got a community organizing job.
Speaker 1 (25:39):
Wow. I want to pause for a second because like,
I don't know, did you ever know like the Arena
that group the Arena, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. They
used to always say like go back to where you're from.
And around Trump's election the first time, I too had
that same kind of thing where I was like, holy shit,
my whole life, like how did I let this happen?
(26:00):
So anyway, so talk us to what happened then.
Speaker 3 (26:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (26:03):
So I was actually working at the un when Trump
was elected or just come off a contract in Europe
and decided to move back to Tennessee, and my parents
were super upset, and I was like, mom, dad, I
want to get involved in Tennessee politics. And my mom
so upset she had to be escorted out of the restaurant.
And the job I got was for a nonprofit law
firm that just got money to hire an organizer because
of the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid cuts the twenty
(26:25):
seventh Medicaid fight, so I was out in the hollers
of the seventh District raising awareness about Medicaid cuts to
rural hospitals, talking to public healthcare officials about what would
happen if subsidies for the Affordable Care Act or cut
lo and behold, it feels like groundhog Day because now
those cuts are actualized through the passage of the Big
Ugly Bill, which is why I decided to jump into
(26:47):
this race. But the important I think art here, especially
in the South, is we've experienced historic disinvestment because oftentimes
funding at the national level is tethered to progressive electoral outcomes, right,
but in a stately we're oppressively jerrymanderd there's anti and
we live in under an anti democratic regime.
Speaker 6 (27:06):
It's hard to have those types of wins.
Speaker 5 (27:07):
But this election, in my campaign, is a testament to
all of that base building that we've been doing the
past decade to get to a place where we are
out organizing our opposition. And it is incredible to watch.
And now this is a twenty point race, now a
four point race.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
And it makes sense because if you think about like
those numbers in New Jersey and in Virginia, we saw
shifts that were that big.
Speaker 5 (27:33):
Yeah, even more and I and and in Tennessee there
hasn't been competitive races, right, So like everything is going
our way, and I would not be going across the
state losing sleep to tell folks that we are ten
points behind because.
Speaker 6 (27:46):
We are so close, like we are so close to
quitting this.
Speaker 5 (27:49):
And it would send a message to Washington that people
are done, they're fed up, We've had enough, We're tired
of begging for crumbs, and it's time to send a
message to the federal administration as we is, our Republican
super majority that y'all have y'all not delivered for working
families in Tennessee.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
When is this special election? Special elections are weird? Who
is it for?
Speaker 5 (28:09):
I'm gonna ask you to do your own research about
Representative Mark Green. But the representative there was some nefarious
activity and then he decided to take a corporate job
and left Congress after.
Speaker 6 (28:23):
Voting for the Big Ugly bill.
Speaker 5 (28:24):
So he left in August or July August, and it
thus catalyzed a special election in Tennessee.
Speaker 6 (28:31):
And it's the last red blue district in the entire country.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
So that is amazing. And who is your challenger and
what does the race look like?
Speaker 5 (28:40):
Yeah, so I'm a pissed off social worker. I'm a
social worker turned community organizer and now a state legislator.
I represent Nashville, which is some of my district is
overlaps with the congressional district. And my opponent has basically
been groomed for this moment. He is a West Point grad.
He served a few terms in Iraq. You know, he's
not the issue, it's the people behind him. He's a
(29:01):
puppet to the puppet masters of the universe. And I
think what's become increasingly clear in this race is one
the impact of dark interest special interest money bolstering his
name ID to get him across the finish line in
the Republican primary, and then right now the Republicans have
spent almost a million dollars or over a million dollars
in our race when they didn't want to be pulled
down to this fight. So it just shows you how
(29:22):
much we're outworking them, out organizing them, and they only
can respond with, you know, the commercials about me, which
you'll see them eventually, but that's all they have. And
while we're knocking doors, you know, they're sending texts comparing
me to Nancy Pelosi, and it just doesn't hit in
the same way that it used to.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
And ten years ago that is wild, but also it
sounds like the district is actually like pretty urban.
Speaker 6 (29:43):
It's tricky.
Speaker 5 (29:44):
I mean, these districts were designed to be uncompetitive, right to.
Speaker 6 (29:48):
Be districts, but their overreach.
Speaker 5 (29:51):
The district includes the highest turnout precincts in Davidson County,
which is Nashville, and then it goes all the way
up to the Kentucky border and includes our purple County Montgomery,
which is where Fort Campbell is there's a lot of
veteran families, and then all the way down to the
Alabama border. But there it includes a few counties where
there are large concentrations of Democrats. So this is just
a mobilization race. It's who can get their people out
(30:12):
to vote. And there was reporting showing following the Republican
primary the Republican turnout is down eighty percent.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Wow, I've seen other statistics that say that. And also
because it's as special and it's at a weird time,
you're not going to have the same low frequency voters. Right.
Speaker 5 (30:31):
Our polling shows that for the most motivated voters in
this race were virtually tied.
Speaker 6 (30:35):
It's fifty to fifty.
Speaker 5 (30:36):
So the people who say ten out of time, I'm
going to vote, it's fifty to fifty. It's the ones
that are the sporadic voters that need more information, that
need an extra boost to get to the polls.
Speaker 6 (30:46):
But because this has become a.
Speaker 5 (30:47):
Nationalized race, a lot of voters are receiving postcards, they're
getting phone bangs from across the country, and I knew
this is exactly what would happen, and it is. It
is materializing in a big way, and it's getting our
people to the polls, which is what's going to win
this race.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
If you win, what would that make the numbers in
this Congress.
Speaker 6 (31:06):
Yeah, the margin's very close.
Speaker 5 (31:08):
I don't know the exact number, but obviously I think
Speaker Johnson's margin is within three or four. And there's
analyzes that I've read that said that it would It
would just totally. I mean, it would undermine whatever power
he has right now, just because another addition to the
to the minority is not helpful for him. So more importantly,
I mean, winning in a Trump twenty.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
District would be the message that.
Speaker 6 (31:32):
It's over, Like it is over.
Speaker 5 (31:34):
This political project that you've been working on for forty
fifty years is culminating right now. It's not delivering in
the way it's supposed to be delivering unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
If you go to Congress now, you'd be in the minority,
which is of course the worst, as everyone says, But
there are opportunities. And like, I'm not just saying this
because I like Robert Garcia, but I think Robert Garcia
on oversight has done a really good job. And like,
because everything is so crazy right now, there are actually
opportunities to do things. I'd love you to sort of
(32:05):
talk about what you feel like you could do in Congress.
Speaker 5 (32:07):
Steve in the minority, Well, I have experienced because I'm
a state legislator and a Republican TRIFECTUS super minority and
a ninety nine per body there are twenty two of us.
In fact, we could leave the state and they could
go on legislating without us. That's how little power you have.
All I'm used to that, and I have actually been able.
I've been very successful. Actually passed a bill of a
(32:27):
partisan bill my first year as a freshman lawmaker, and
two organizing so I use my legislative seats to file
legislation that may not be passed the first time. It
creates a vehicle for me to organize. And so in Tennessee,
we have one of the highest grocery tax rates in
the country, plationary cost of groceries in the country, and I,
(32:48):
with my colleague in the state Senate, ran a bill
to end the grocery tax by closing corporate tax loopholes.
And for the past three years, that is all I've
been doing is organizing around it, and it has really
shifted the paradigm one towards economic justice and a conversation
about corporate power. And that's what I would do in Congress,
is I would file legislation that obviously resonates with my district,
but then use it to organize and build the constituency
(33:11):
and the coalition I need to then maintain a rplus
twenty seat in next November.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
Yeah, this is a moment where those numbers don't mean
what they used to mean, especially after that twenty twenty
five cycle, like things could be very different, right.
Speaker 5 (33:26):
Yeah, and especially once again in a state like Tennessee
that has is not a battleground state, so there's not
a lot of money spent it is we've been kind
of left behind, and I think this race speaks to that,
in which you have this political project of the Republican
trifacta at all levels, and once again they are not
They're not fulfilling the commitments they made to Tennessee. And
(33:48):
so I think what we have tried to do on
this campaign is to build a coalition of the disenchanted,
build a coalition of.
Speaker 6 (33:54):
The pissed off.
Speaker 5 (33:55):
If you are upset about the chaos and Washington and
the cost of living, I am your candidate, and I
will never fight for the puppet masters. I will always
fight for the people in my district. And that message
is absolutely resonating. The other thing I'll say is, I mean,
as a lot of other states are in an affordability crisis.
We can't afford rent, we can't afford utilities, we can't
afford groceries and healthcare. And so as a healthcare organizer,
(34:17):
as someone who's always fought to make healthcare more affordable
in the state, the paradigm is shifting for I think,
especially Republican and maybe independent leaning voters to say, you
know what, like you all have been advocating and lobbing
against the Affordable Care Acts for a decade, and like,
what do you have to show for it? You don't
have any solutions, and that's what my opponent is offering
is a whole pile of nothing.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Oh yeah, there's something really cool about people moving back
to where they're from. Can you talk for a minute
about the experience of moving back to where you're from.
Speaker 5 (34:47):
I was someone who always wanted to get out of
East Tennessee, and I think I had a reckoning like
a lot of people November of twenty sixteen, not recognizing
the place I came from. I mean, I had a
wonderful childhood. I loved growing up in East Tennessee. I
love Appalachia, and I didn't understand why this state had
(35:08):
become so hostile and what happened to my community in
which they looked at President Trump as the antidote. And
I think organizing across Tennessee and Kentucky in the South
for the past ten years, it's provided a glimpse into that,
into an answer, which is people feel like the status
quo is not working. It is not working for that
and I think, you know, last election was one about
(35:29):
those that believe the institutions we have are working for
them and those that aren't. And I'm a candidate who
has always checked power. I have someone that is always
I'm not the chosen candidate by any party, and I'm
someone that has always just used the golden rule and
always centered the most impacted in my policymaking and my organizing.
Speaker 6 (35:50):
And I think that's coming across, which is why my
Republican opposition.
Speaker 5 (35:53):
Right now is having such a hard time kind of
pinning me to a wall and navigating this race.
Speaker 1 (35:57):
Yeah, I'm sure that's true, and it has got to
be really interesting running for this race. When is your
election and just give us a little more about what
people can do for you.
Speaker 5 (36:10):
Early votings started last Wednesday and it goes until the
twenty sixth, and then the election is December second, So
we've got less than two weeks and the election is
December second, And like I said, it would be one
of the most profound upsets in the political upsets in
recent history. And I'm just deeply honored to be the
Democratic nominee at this moment in time and see at
(36:31):
the national level.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Yeah, that's so cool. Well, congratulations, looking forward to seeing
you in Congress.
Speaker 5 (36:40):
Bears Cross's Yeah, it's been a wild ride, but I
never thought I'd be running for Congress in the year
twenty twenty five. But I think this moment demands a
contagious courage and with the skill set to organize through
this crisis, these compounded crises that we're going through, And
I think inspiring thing, is inspiring the next generation to
(37:02):
lead and hopefully will come up behind me and take
back our country.
Speaker 1 (37:06):
Yeah all right, well, thank you, thank you, great to
have you. Hopeful to see you soon.
Speaker 5 (37:11):
Pleasure well hopefully well once again, big fan, thanks for
all you do. It's been wonderful watching your ascendants. So
just really honored and thanks for covering this moment in time.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
No mo.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
Jesse Cannon smiling.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
You know, nothing says Keystone Cops and just total outright
disregard for the law, like Ice losing Kia evidence one
day after being sued.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
Yeah, I mean again, is it Keystone Cops or is
it just dis I mean again, Are they incompetent or
are they corrupt? This is like the game we need
to play in Trump world. Are they incompetent or are
they corrupt? And so four of four media reports said
after ICE's broad View detention center outside of Chicago was
sued October thirtieth for allegedly abusing detainees. The agency said
(38:05):
that two weeks of video footage could not be shown,
could not be found. They wasn't found in the system.
And that's of course where we have it. Of course,
that's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best
(38:25):
minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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