May 1, 2024 • 49 mins
The Mary Trump Show’s Mary Trump skewers Donald Trump’s courtroom antics. Senator Tammy Duckworth stops by to talk to us about Republicans' war against IVF. Everytown’s Sarah Burd-Sharps examines Tennessee’s horrifying new law that puts guns in schools.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds, and Donald Trump has been fined for
contempt of court.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
We have such a great show for you.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Senator Tammy Duckworth stops by to talk to us about
IVF and Democrats trying to protect it. Then we'll be
joined by Sarah Bird Sharps, who is the senior director
of research for every Town for Gun Safety, to talk
about Tennessee's horrifying new law which puts more guns in schools.
(00:36):
But first we have the host of the Mary Trump Show,
the one the only Mary Trump.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Welcome back, my friend and.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Yours the only good member of the entire Trump family,
Mary Trump.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Well, my kid's pretty awesome, that's say.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Right, right, all right, okay, I'm so sorry. That's a
really good points. Yes, one of the few.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Members it's you know, she's like a unicorn. Yeah, I
mean I love that.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
So let's talk about this trial that is going on,
the Trump push money trial. I mean, it is what's
so interesting to me. And we've talked about this before,
and like, I think we could pull this back to
sort of make it even more of a of a thing,
but you know it really is true, Like this is
(01:26):
the first time the guy has ever been held accountable
for anything ever.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Right, yes, yeah, in any serious real way for sure.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
And like as you're watching it, I mean you are
not watching this in real time because first of all,
there are no cameras in the court room.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
But also like, I am so sick of your uncle.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
I can only imagine how sick of him you are.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Yeah, I actually word about that yesterday. I was like,
I am so tired of him. I'm tired of every
aspect of being right. I mean, even if you were like.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
A normal political candidate, which isn't I mean, he is
like a not very smart guy who's somehow managed to
almost end American democracy multiple times.
Speaker 5 (02:10):
Right.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
I mean he's not a genius. He just sort of
hits it, right, right, I mean isn't that really what
it is?
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Yeah? And I don't mean this in an ad hominem way.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
He's grotesque, right, No, he's definitely grotesque.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
But I mean like the fact that he's managed to.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Capture the zeitgeist well and then just bang us over
the head again and again.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Right, and that gain that's the point it's because it's
isn't just the incessant coverage of him, it's also the
people he subjects us to and will subject us to again.
You know, imagine Stephen Miller being head of the Department
of Homeland Security, or you know, Jason Miller being Attorney general,
(02:56):
or Steve Badabg a jorney, like the people people he
surrounds himself with the way he warps people who might
otherwise be behave normally like his attorney.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, that's such a good point about I would love
you to talk about that, because that is something I
think a lot about it. Who was I taught there
was someone smart I was talking to about how one
of the things Trump does is he makes these people
who are otherwise good lawyers.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Behave in such a way as to ruin themselves.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yeah, and it's almost to a person, and it's also
almost always self defeating, right the way, and his name
escapes me at the moment, Todd Bland.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Todd Blanche, Jim Trustee, I come from.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Well, Jim Trustee was like the first of these trumpy
lawyers who ruined himself for right, Like they are trumpy
lawyers like Rudy who were already ruined, right, Yes, and right,
They're like two categories of Trump lawyers. There are the
people like Rudy who are just you know, they were
never really lawyers. And then there are the people like
(04:08):
Jim Trustee and even the guy who's arguing in front
of the Supreme Corps, who clearly are smart, but who
are also ruining themselves for Trump in different ways.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Yeah, and the question remains why, yes, why.
Speaker 6 (04:25):
As far as I'm aware, Todd Blade had to leave
White Shoot firm. And it's not just that he did it,
it's the case for which he did it.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
It is this leaziest.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
New York tablooioist piece of lime that he's waiting through
and transforming himself into a creature that is so unlike
him he needs because of his client is sitting there
and judging him to be this tough, aggressive, off putting
(04:58):
guy who is based lost all credibility with the judge
in week two, so that Donald don't beat him up afterwards,
even if it undermines this defense.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
It's craziness, yes, And it's also like a lot of
the stuff that they're saying, right, A lot of these
these arguments that they're using are arguments that Trump has
sort of asked them.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
To use, you know, from the very embarrassing opening gambit
of why he's calling him mister president.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
Right exactly.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
And you know, if we look back, this case is
just getting started. But if we look back at the
Trump civil case with Egene, we really see that at
every point Candidate Trump hurt defend on Trump right, Like
defending Trump is up there, and he could have just said,
you know, I don't have the tens of millions of
(05:52):
dollars here, and instead he was like, not.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Only do I have the tens of millions of dollars.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Yes, the hundreds of millions in.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Right in cash, but yet my bond is faulty. But
that's not for that is obviously because I have so
much money.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Yes, it's just so he has so much money that
he can't come up with the bond and he has
to barber money and pay interest because that's what rich
people do, who know.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Right, I mean?
Speaker 7 (06:20):
So it basically is, as you say, this crossroads or sorry,
this this tension between the candidate and the defendant, and
the defendant will undermine the candidate unless the defendant decides
to undermine his case.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
And that's what he's going to do you know, Donald
isn't just as in the civil case, he's not going
to say he doesn't have the money because that would
be a concession to the fact that he's kind of
a loser. And in this trial, even if he wants
de lays or he you know, needs a break from it,
he's not going to call him sick because that would
make him look weak. Although as if he doesn't look
(06:58):
weak already by complaining about our called it is in
the courtroom. Get a flip in Parka.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Yeah, I mean I don't understand why, Like you can't
have a sweater under the jacket.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Could you imagine a been a sweater though? Like, think
about it.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
But it's also like the falling asleep.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
I remember early days in twenty nineteen, before or maybe
twenty twenty, when this campaign was started going that someone
said to me, you know, it's a real risk for
Trump to say that Biden is you know, basically Trump's
whole thing was that Biden is old. Right, he's old,
and that he has dementia and da da da da da, which.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
The mainstream media has run with.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Right, this is Trump really was, you know in twenty sixteen,
twenty seventeen, the first and hopefully last Trump administration. They were,
they were there was a piece bag Trump assignment editor right.
Speaker 8 (07:52):
That he'd come up with some crazy idea like buying Greenland,
and then we'd see even United States SATs write op
eds about what a brilliant idea that was.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
And that sort of happened with Trump saying that Biden
was old and infirmed and doddering, and the mainstream media
picked that up and ran numerous stories about how old
he was. But what I think is interesting is someone
said to me around that time.
Speaker 9 (08:17):
You know that this is a dangerous play for Trump
because Trump is only three years younger than Biden. And
so when you see him fall in and out of
sleep in the courtroom, and obviously it's hours and hours
and hours, and you can't drink diet coke and whatever,
but still there is a sense this is a person
who has spent the last eight years.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
Saying that Biden is sleepy.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Joe, and here is Trump actually sleeping.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Yeah, his projections will come back to bite him, for sure,
and it is in this instance. And I think it's
also revealing just what a scam it was to go
after Biden's age because what are your criteria for? Because
Biden speaks more carefully because of his ser and more softly,
(09:06):
and because he walks stiffly.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
He broke his foot.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
There's a whole thing about how he broke his foot,
and maybe.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
That is that is worth three points in polling.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
I read that somewhere.
Speaker 10 (09:18):
But then you look at the other person who he's
acting unhinged and delusional vigorously, So that's better.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
I don't know. I think that the media it's time
for them to look in the mirror and do a
little soul searching here because, as we've learned to our chagrin,
and that's like the understatement of the millennium, we don't
have a Supreme Court that is interested in protecting democracy.
So we really need the force estate to step up.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Last week it was like yet another week of the
Supreme Court doing things that were just what we sort
of suspected they would do.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
But you know, it was a confirmation you never wanted.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Yeah, And it was back to back to back of
just a heartbreak and cruelty and viciousness and intellectual dishonesty
and mag of insanity. So it makes what's happening in
New York and what may happen in Georgia all the
more someday, someday where we can be aspirational, because we
(10:27):
always have to look at this stuff on two levels. Unfortunately,
because Donald is the presumptive Republican nominee for the presidency.
I think that these trials, and we've talked about this,
this trial in particular in New York, even the civil
trials they take, they're taking a toll.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yeah, he's trapped there.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
He doesn't have a choice, you know, he can have
his die cookes. And for somebody who drinks twelve a day, like,
being without one for four hours is probably very debilitating.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
They're so bad for you.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
I'm gonna have a coke coformative.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Absolutely, absolutely. So we need people to see that. We
need people to see that he cannot stand being bound
by rules that the rest of us have to live
by all the time. He can't handle scrutiny, He can't
handle honesty, you know, he can't. He can't go a
day without breaking a gag order again.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Right, yeah, he got this is coming out on Wednesday,
But on Tuesday, Trump got yet again sanctioned.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
For more gag order violation.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Yeah, and then we have another hearing on Thursday to
deal with the latest ones, and it will be interesting
to see given the fact that the judge gave him
a financial penalty today and said, unfortunately, I can't you know,
I can assign a penalty that's big enough to make
a difference to somebody who is as rich as you
claim to be. We're looking at potential jail time, right,
(11:49):
So we need to keep that. That kind of stuff
needs to keep happening. But then the Supreme Court, and
obviously the most important thing is the Supreme Court is
certainly the super majority of these fanatics, these anti democratic
fanatics are held bent on destroying American democracy in order
to help out Donald Trump. Go wrap your brain around that.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
But it also I cannot I'm sorry, I cannot wrap
my brain around it.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Stupid, it's impossible.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
What that hearing did was give him a much needed boost,
and like it's like people just keep bailing this guy out,
and it's just infuriating. There's not a word strong enough
to describe what that feels like anymore.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
It's so interesting because it's like one of the things
we in those salad days of twenty twenty, when we
all thought that there would be accountability for your problems.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
But right, well, we also all thought we're going to
dive COVID.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
But I think about this idea, like when you listen
to Justice Thomas or just as Alido, Trump's to Trump's
Michael Cohen on the Supreme Court is just as Alito right,
And I think like Trump's Rudy is just as Thomas right.
Those two will do anything for their guy. When you
(13:07):
hear them, you know, talking about how there has to
be presidential immunity for crimes because you know, otherwise the
presidency though it's gone on.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Well you know for the last two hundred plus years.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Now, you know, if you don't have immunity for doing crimes,
it's going to be a real problem. I think a
lot about like how really affluent white men have gotten
away with it pretty much since the country's inception.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Well that's why when when people say the system, some
people say the system is broken, and some people respond
by saying that the system is working exactly as it
was designed to You kind of see, they have a
point because this system was designed by a bunch of rich, landed,
generally enslaving white men who wanted to protect their own
(13:57):
power at any costs, and because we never challenged that
in any sustained way. I mean we did it in
serious ways, but never in any sustained way. I mean,
look what happened after reconstruction. Look where we are visa
via Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. I mean,
it's all unraveling because we one side has been building
(14:21):
towards having people like Donald Trump at the head of
the party and you know, wielding real power, while the
rest of us think, oh, we did that, so let's
be complacent, now.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Right, I mean, for sure.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
And it's also I just think that the guard rails
did not hold. No, not to put too fine a point.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
On it, but it's true, and it's very sobering, and
I think it is a stark reminder of the dangers
of thinking that democracy.
Speaker 5 (14:50):
Is a goal.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
It's not a goal.
Speaker 5 (14:53):
It's a process.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
It's organic, it's living, and we need to keep fighting
for it. It doesn't just stop. And we think, you know,
unless we're a twenty fourth century starfleet, in which case
we love it and.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
We're in good shape.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Yeah, it is just completely strange to think of us
in this situation now, where it still feels really precarious, right,
I mean if Trump wins. You know, I was walking
down the street the other day and a woman came
over to me who was young, and said, Trump can't
(15:28):
possibly win, can he?
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Right?
Speaker 1 (15:32):
I mean that's what And it's what we say to
each other all the time, right, like, Trump can't possibly win,
canny and he could?
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Yeah, And it's because so many malign forces are lined up.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
To assist him, right, say more about that.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Well, as we just saw with the Supreme Court, how
long have people been saying, well, the rule of law
is going to take care of this. Well, maybe not.
And do we really think that if by some tragedy
he gets back into the White House, that they're going
to care about state charges. No, they'll figure something out,
(16:12):
they'll jail the justice Mersham or whatever. We've had. Obviously,
the media, many many outlets, corporate media outlets, have been
complicit in either both sides, ism or false equivalency or
the DOJ you know, in terms of making so long,
(16:32):
because what does that do? That normalizes? We got to
a point where people are like, well, how could it
be a big deal if it took so long? Right,
if it were such a big deal, then they would
have dealt with it immediately. So that has been an
enormous disservice Americans and certainly to the people who went
(16:53):
through January sixth. It put us in a situation where
tens of millions of voters are going to be once
again going to the voting with the November without all
of the information.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Mary Trump, thank you for joining my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Spring is here and I bet you are trying to
look fashionable, So why not pick up some fashionable all
new Fast Politics merchandise. We just opened a news store
with all new designs just for you. Get t shirts, hoodies, hats,
and top bags. To grab some head to fastpolitics dot com.
(17:36):
Tammy Duckworth is the junior Senator from Illinois. Welcome to
Fast Politics, Senator Dockworth.
Speaker 5 (17:42):
It's good to be Ellen. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
I'm always a fan of yours.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
This IVF thing is a topic that I cannot stop
thinking talking about. Where are we right now with IVF
protection in the Senate?
Speaker 5 (17:57):
Well, I have the best IVF protect action bill that
I brought up with unanimous consent, which is a way
that you can pass legislation here where if nobody objects
to it, you pass it and then it can go
to the House to be voted on. And after all,
my Republican colleagues said that, oh no, they supported IVF.
They stood up and opposed, and in fact, one of
the reasons they gave for opposing my IVF bill was
(18:20):
that they were afraid that I would allow for the
creation of human animal chimera babies.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Ooh, yes, our senator is saying this, right, This is
a senator saying this.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Is it Tommy Tuberville though.
Speaker 5 (18:34):
No, no, is City Height Smith.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Yeah that makes sense, all right, that tracks.
Speaker 5 (18:39):
Yeah, So we're going to get a vote on the floor.
So Leader Schumer has agreed that he's going to bring
a vote to the floor and it's going to be
the Protect IVF Act. And basically, the bottom line is
all we're looking to do is just create a statutory
right to access IVF if you want to have IVF.
Doesn't force a meaning to get it. It just says
if you want to get IVF, you can. And it
says that doctors that want to offer IVF services have
(19:02):
the right to offer IBF services regardless of the state
that they live in that they practice in, and that
health insurance companies have the right to cover IVF services
if they want to offer it. So it doesn't actually
force anybody to seek it or offer it or provide it.
It just says we have a right to do so.
And that will be coming up to the floor for
a vote. Right now, we're working on FAA reauthorization, and
(19:23):
sometime after that, hopefully at some point before we get
too far into the summer, we'll have a vote on
protecting IVF. And let's see how many Republicans who say
they support IVF actually vote for or against it.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
So IVF, all of this IVF banning, legislating, and regulating
comes from Republicans' obsession with embryonic personhood, which is now
being pushed by the Heritage Foundation.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
When did you encounter this?
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Because I sort of know where I was when I
encountered this idea that embryos were people.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
And when you encountered it, were you shocked?
Speaker 5 (20:00):
So I started talking about the potential danger for access
to IVF back in twenty fourteen, Wow, because Queen fourteen,
I was going through IVF and I was a congresswoman
in the House, and my Republican colleagues started talking about
a fertilized egg being a person with person would rights.
(20:21):
At back point in time, my doctor and I had
fertilized five eggs and we were looking to get me
pregnant for the first time. And he said, hey, these
five eggs we were able to fertilize, three are non viable.
If I were to put them in you, they would
cause a miscarriage. So the best thing we can do
is to discard these. And then just as he was
doing that, he said, by the way, if these person
(20:43):
who would bills that are popping up all around the country,
both at the federal level but then also those state
level happens, what we're doing today would be deemed could
potentially be dean manslaughter or murder because we were discarding
three fertilized eggs. They're non viable, but there's still three
fertilized eggs. I could be charged as a doctor with
manslaughter or murder. And you could be accessory to manslaughter
(21:05):
or murder because you're telling me go ahead and discard
of those non viable fertilized eggs. And that was when
the light bulb went on for me, and I went, oh,
my god, this is not just about abortion, This is
not just about you know, six week bands and all
this this is about people like me who are trying
to start families. And so where we are today is
(21:26):
that when you have a state Supreme court like the
one in Alabama makes a decision that you know, fertilized
egg is an extra uteral child and as a person,
it means that even though they haven't banned IVF, it
means that essentially they have because doctors are not going
(21:47):
to provide IVF services in places where a fertilized egg
is considered a human being. And by the way, this
affects more than just IBF. It also affects birth control
devices like IUD that prevents implantation of fertilized.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Egg and the morning after pill too, on.
Speaker 5 (22:02):
The morning after pill. And by the way, all of
this is thanks to Donald Trump. Because of him and
Stackey the Supreme Court, we got to a point where that,
you know, the Dodds decision overturned Roe v. Wade, and
that is what Republicans campaign for for decades. And now
we're in a world where states have all these different laws,
and many of them have all sorts of laws now
(22:23):
in place that essentially makes it impossible to access IVF
without putting the person with the uterus or the doctor
in legal jeopardy for manslaughter or murder charges.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
It is so incredibly insane. I want to talk about
Alabama for another minute, because this is the first date
that did it. We saw immediately that these doctors, you know,
you really struck by sit in this post row America,
how much doctors do not want to lose their licenses
or go to jail. I mean, you know, they just
closed all the IVF clinics in the state until the governor,
(22:59):
Governor k Ivy indemnify them from killing embryos, which again,
I feel like that's so important and meaningful because what
she was saying was not embryos aren't people.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Just you know, it's okay in this case, right.
Speaker 5 (23:16):
Right, but our future governor could change their mind that point.
They're just saying, oh, yeah, you're still killing a person
when you discard a non viable fertilized egg. We're just
not going to prosecute you. Well, Alabama was the first
day where the Supreme Court said that Forliz's egg is
a human being. You should know that Louisiana has already
(23:38):
had a law on the books that prohibits the discarding
fertilized eggs from IVF procedures. So they already have a
law on the books. So if you can't get IVF
and Louisiana or had IVF in Louisiana in the past,
and you have a frozen egg or for you know,
some frozen eggs, not even embryos in some cases, So
you have embryos, you have you know, the different stages
and ga meet and before that is just have FARIZEDX.
(23:59):
You can't just guard any of that in Louisiana. So
now is that chowderbased because I've kept a fertilized egg
on ice for decades?
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Right, No, you could theoretically be considered a murderer by
letting a frozen embryo be discarded, even a.
Speaker 5 (24:16):
Non viable one. And Texas Right for Life who wrote
the Texas bounty laws that lets people sue the uber
driver who drove you to the airport so you could
catch a flight to Illinois to get an abortion. The
people who wrote that law have on their web page
that you know they're neutral. They can get to neutral
on IVF only if the woman agrees to have every
(24:37):
fertilized egg implanted, including the non viable ones that would
cause miscarriages. This is where we're going in this country.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
So you would have to have a non viable egg
implanted if you wanted to have IVF, even though the
non viable egg would then be miscarried and might cause
you to miscarry the viable embryos too.
Speaker 5 (25:01):
Yes, Or if you knew that you had in my case,
three non viable eggs and you don't want to jeopardize
your one viable egg, you would be forced to implant
one non viable egg at a time and go through
three miscarriages.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Jesus.
Speaker 5 (25:18):
And by the way, that's expensive, not otherwise it is devastating,
but it's also every procedure is incredibly expensive and hard
on the body, with all of the drugs you have
to take and inject in all that.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Yes, it feels like it's set up in a way
to make things as unpleasant for women as possible. When
you read the Heritage Foundation, I don't know if you've
got on their twenty twenty five site, but it's the
stuff of nightmare fuels.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
There's a whole sort of.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Thesis about how why isn't IVF regulated? These are the
people who don't want to regulate anything. But they're like
IVS can cost one thing in one parts and other
and other parts. And why isn't there greater regulation for IVF?
I mean, it doesn't this seem so nakedly misogynistic. Aren't
you sort of shocked by the hypocrisy? You probably aren't,
(26:13):
but I'm just curious what your take is.
Speaker 5 (26:14):
Well, yeah, I mean there's a hypocrisy, but there's also
science denial as part of it. And well, my bill
that says you'd have the right to access IVF says
that the IVF that is provided must be what is
accepted medical practice, not experimental stuff, not you know, human
animal camera expected. But that's what they bring up. And
(26:38):
so when when you see things like Heritage Foundations saying
that you need to regulate IVF because it will be
the wild broad West, that is really science denial of
where the science really is today. And frankly, you know,
women's most intimate health decisions should not be up for
debate in every state and they should not be decided
by extreme right wing judges and science denial, and frankly,
(27:01):
you know we're being dragged back to laws at one
hundred and sixty years old in some states, and we
really do need to pass legislation that provides a natutory
right for women to have access to IBF. I mean,
you know it is there is definitely a misogynistic aspect
of this, where women can be trusted to make their
(27:21):
own health decisions. When you start with IVF, where do
you go next? Do I start to have to go
and get my husband's permission to take an aspirint? Is
that what's next?
Speaker 2 (27:31):
That is sort of what's next? Right?
Speaker 1 (27:33):
I listen to two really insane Supreme Court decisions this session.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
You'll remember that after.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Jobs, I think it was Justice Roberts who said that
now they were done with abortion. Two years later they
are not done with abortion. You had m tala. Can
we talk about that? Because so this is this emergency medicine. Basically,
the Biden administration is suing Idaho because Idaho has got
(28:03):
these women who are you know, dying of miscarriages and
having to be flown out of the state because Idaho
won't save their lives. Were you sort of shocked by
that decision? Probably not because you're used to this insanity,
But I'm curious what your take is.
Speaker 5 (28:20):
I'm not shocked by it. Unfortunately, this is what happens,
you know, And again this goes back to what republic
has been working on for decades, which is overturned protections
ro Vy Wade what Donald Trump worked very hard along
with Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans to basically steal Supreme
Court seats. This is what the Supreme Court justices who
lied to members of the Senate right well, who said that,
(28:44):
oh no, I'm not going to gut Roe v. Wade
and then turn around and did exactly that. This is
where you end up. And I live in Illinois. I'm
surrounded by states where women are being told by doctors
you need to go sit in your car outside at
the emergency room and bleed out a little bit more
until you get to the point where you are nearer
(29:04):
to death before I can work of you. Yeah, you know,
and look in my state, we welcome women and we've
trusted them to make their own reproductive choice, and we
welcome doctors who want to move from these other states
to Illinois. But this is really bad for women, especially
lower income women in these states that are losing these doctors.
You're seeing obgui ns flee literally fleeing these states like
(29:27):
Louisiana and Alabama and Texas.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
And Florida, now Tennessee and.
Speaker 5 (29:33):
Tennessee, and you're going to see, you know, women in
these states not have access to basic health share.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
We just talked for a second about this science denihilism,
which does seem to really be an enormous and important
thread in this Republican party. You know, it's been sort
of latent through the Bushiers. You know, it's not out
of nowhere, but it does strike me that COVID really
helped it along. Like these people did not come out
(30:00):
to COVID being like thank God for vaccines.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
No, no, but it goes back right with the science
of denial. This, this does go back. But where we
are today is really when it comes to women losing
their rights to reproductive health care, making their own reproductive
healthcare decision. This begins out of the abortion and the
anti abortion movement. And frankly, if you go back and
(30:23):
you look at some of these groups, they've always said
that they would go after IVF, but they didn't want
to talk about it because first and foremost they wanted
to go after abortion. And you know, call themselves pro
pro life. How can you be pro life and be
against a procedure like IVF that helps people to create life.
And you know, when Alabama, when that state Supreme Court
decision happened, you saw interviews with women who and you know,
(30:45):
they were asked questions like, well, who did you vote for?
You know, Oh, I'm pro I'm pro life. Of course
I voted for that joke, you know, so of course
I voted these legislators and I voted for laws to
end abortion. But and yes, I believe that, you know,
for LiF's acreci human being. But why are you preventing
me from getting my IVF? They're very disconnected from the
science behind it. It's like, well, this is the logical
(31:07):
next step from what were you're doing.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Abortion has always been a controversial issue, right, There's always been.
I mean it's more it's now more popular than it's
ever been because it was taken away. But IVF is
wildly popular. There's no one, I mean, former Vice President
Mike Pence had IVF right, So, you know, like they're
(31:29):
trying to get people against something they aren't against.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Do you think this will work? And also what do
you think the thinking here is?
Speaker 5 (31:36):
We're at a play. This is basically an anti choice
monster of Republicans' own making because they were going after abortion,
and they became more and more extreme. Sixteen week bands,
twelve weeks ban, six week bands for Liz's egg as
a human being, So a complete ban, a complete band
isn't enough. So for Li's egg has to be a
(31:56):
human being, you know. And I've been warning that IVA
would be next for you. And this is what Republicans
have gotten us to. And frankly, it's a far cry
away from the justice and reproductive freedom that all families deserve.
But I'm not surprised that we're here. This is just
the next logical step. And I don't think people understand again,
(32:17):
this is a science portion. I mean, I had a
miscarriage in one of my IVF cycles and I had
to have a DNC in order to be able to
clear out my uterus in order to start my next
IVF cycle to have my daughter. Now who's you know,
who's six years old. But I would not have been
able to do that if I were living in one
of these states that had these total bands. Were where
(32:39):
we are because Republican politicians jumped on the anti abortion
bandwagon without fooling understanding where it was going to get to,
or in some cases maybe they did and this was
always their goal. But frankly, ultimately this is because of them,
and this is because of Donald Trump where we find
ourselves today. Thank you, Senator Dockworth, Thank you for having
(32:59):
me on.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Sarah Bird Sharps is the senior director of research for
Every Town for Gun Safety.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Welcome to Fast Politics, Sarah.
Speaker 11 (33:13):
Thank you, and thanks so much for your interest in
this really important issue.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Yeah, I think this is kind of the most important issue.
You know, it's about to sort of say that it's hyperbolic,
but I actually don't think it is. I actually think
it is the most important issue. So we're talking about
school shootings and keeping kids safe in school, and you
have a plan to keep kids safe in school. Let
me guess that it doesn't involve arming the children and teachers.
Speaker 11 (33:41):
That would be correct.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
So tell me talk to me about what that entails.
Speaker 11 (33:45):
So I'm going to start out by kind of setting
the stage by saying that if more guns made us safer,
the United States, with more guns per person than any
other nation, would be the safest country in the world.
And instead we have a on death rate that's thirteen
times higher than our peer high income countries. So to
(34:06):
my view and based on you know, a lot of
research on this, arming teachers is not the answer.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
So let's talk about what the answer.
Speaker 11 (34:14):
Is, sure, and sort of more generally, we need to
focus on intervening before a gun gets into the school, right,
because we've already failed if somebody has brought a gun
into a school to do harm, and so the arming
of teachers is really way too late to be trying
to intervene in this situation.
Speaker 4 (34:32):
How do you do that?
Speaker 11 (34:33):
So the first thing is to understand sort of who
these shooters are so that you can then begin to
think about what you know would prevent them. And one
thing is that most shooters are a Kurner, former student
from that school. And I think that the Department of
Justice did a stunding study over a couple of decades
and they found that nine to ten school shooters over
(34:55):
many many years were a Kerner, a former student. So
when you understand that, you understand that some of the
solutions that have been proposed are just completely unrealistic and
in fact sometimes even dangerous. So you know, these really
expensive metal detectors and all the bulletproof glass and all
of these things, and even the drills only worked the
(35:16):
extent that the former or current student knows exactly what
the protocol is and what's happening at what time and where.
So that's that's really an important thing to understand. The
other thing about knowing that it's a current or former
student that really makes arming teachers much more complicated is
that you're asking a teacher to convert themselves into some
(35:37):
kind of you know, sharpshooter in the face of somebody
who they may have taught or they knew, you know,
over many years. It's unrealistic.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Yeah, I mean, I also think like the teachers don't
become teachers to kill students exactly.
Speaker 11 (35:52):
And in fact, you know, all of the sort of
the National Education Association that all of the member or
organizations of teachers in this country pose it but pose
arming teachers, and that's you know, tens of thousands of
teachers in this country. It's not what they signed up for.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Yeah, it's a terrible idea.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
One of the fundamental things that I'm struck by is
this idea, if you have a gun in your house,
you're significantly more likely to be shot by accident, Right,
I mean, guns just don't seem to protect in.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
The way that their pr tells us they.
Speaker 11 (36:22):
Do absolutely, And you know, we track on intentional shootings
and they're happening every day in this country. People are
getting you know, shot and killed or killing themselves or
injuring themselves every day from a gun that was not
securely stored. Particularly children. There's a you know, many Americans
don't realize that nearly once a day in this country
(36:45):
a child gets their hand on an loaded, unlocked gun
and shoots themselves or someone else. So, you know, the
message there is it's on adults to have the responsibility
to keep the guns locked up, securely and securely stored.
And that relates to schools too, because seventy percent of
the guns that come into schools with a shooter came
(37:08):
from the home of a parent or a close relative.
So the solution is not to have more guns on
more people in the schools. It's to make sure that
the homes are places where guns are not accessible to children.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
But one of the things I'm hoping you can talk
about is they need to raise the age to buy
automatic weapons.
Speaker 4 (37:29):
Can you talk about that?
Speaker 5 (37:30):
Sure?
Speaker 11 (37:30):
And some states in this country have a minimum age
requirement that requires either handguns or lung guns or both
not to be able to bought unless you're eighteen or older.
Many states don't, and those laws are proven to be
hugely impactful to prevent people who shouldn't have their hands
on guns people are too young. Twenty two states have
(37:52):
raised the minimum age for purchasing firearms and.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
Are those blue states?
Speaker 11 (37:56):
Many of them are.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
Yes.
Speaker 11 (37:59):
Federal law requires a person to be twenty one to
purchase a handgun, but only eighteen to buy a long gun,
including an assault weapon.
Speaker 4 (38:08):
So insane.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
The Supreme Court, very conservative, trumpy Supreme Court. Last year
there was a case where they fought with New York
State about New York State's stricter gun laws.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Can you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 5 (38:23):
Sure?
Speaker 11 (38:24):
So, I think you're talking about Bruin, right.
Speaker 4 (38:26):
I'm talking about Bruin. Yes.
Speaker 11 (38:27):
So, I mean basically, what a number of states, including
New York State, want is to be able to make decisions,
to have some discretion about whether somebody who wants to
buy a gun should be able to buy. The Supreme
Court said, nope, you know, if you can fulfill the
requirements and you don't have any record of mental health
prohibiting or a felony or a domestic violence restraining water.
(38:52):
There's no discretion in there, and they took that away.
Many states, the states that are impacted, including New York State,
have tried to find other ways to protect us. When
sort of one door closes, you know, we're trying to
open other doors to figure out what are what can
legally be done, you know, to reduce the you know,
one hundred and twenty gun desks a day in this country,
(39:14):
every day, day after day.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
I talked to Chris Murphy about this topic and I was,
you know, a little bit despairing, and he actually said, no,
there's real progress being made, and it's organizations.
Speaker 4 (39:26):
Like yours that are doing it.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
So can you talk to us about what the sort
of reasons to be hopeful here?
Speaker 5 (39:32):
Sure?
Speaker 11 (39:32):
And I am really hopeful. And I'm not generally given
to be a cup hip full kind of person, but
I am generally hopeful. One reason I'm hopeful is that
young people give me a lot of hope. They are
the generation that has grown up with you know, school
shootings and lockdowns and constant drills and all of these things.
It's impacting them in a in a profound way, and
(39:54):
they've decided to raise their voices. They're talking to legislators,
they're doing research, they're walking out of school rules. They're
really organizing to be able to change this. And that's
one thing that gives me hope. A second thing that
gives me hope is that there have been laws passed
in the last year, important laws that are safer, including
secure storage laws in a couple of New states that
(40:14):
didn't have them before, which you're holding gun owners accountable
for not locking their guns securely. And those laws are
some of the laws that research shows are the most
promising that really protect young people from suicide, kids from
getting guns that they bring into schools and cause school
shootings and more. And so you know, to me, those
(40:35):
laws immediately the minute they're signed can start to save lives.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Do you think that, like the holding the parents accountable
what happened there in that shooting, do you think that
is actually helpful?
Speaker 11 (40:49):
It's extremely helpful. It reminds every parent, nobody, including that
family you know, wanted to go through the horror and
the trauma you know that has turned and that family
upside down forever, right, as well as the families of
the victims right. Seeing that in the news, I have
no doubt that other parents realized, oh, you never know,
(41:11):
we need to lock our guns securely. It's an extremely
important incentive, a reminder that is a basic responsibility of
a gun owner, and responsible gun owners know take storage seriously.
Speaker 5 (41:25):
And do it.
Speaker 11 (41:25):
You know, most gun owners store their guns securely. Unfortunately
millions don't. Many households have multiple guns in them, and
people think that, you know, they're going to keep one
gun out for self defense. There is a guarantee that
any children in that house know exactly where that gun is.
It's in some states criminal and in every state highly
(41:48):
highly irresponsible.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
What are the kind of things legislators should be doing
to help dissuade people from having guns in their house
or having them unsecured.
Speaker 11 (41:58):
So I would say it's not about having guns in
your house, it's about all of the ways that we
can make sure that guns are being stored securely, but
also that if anybody is in crisis around those guns,
that something is being done. So I think one of
the laws that's extremely promising and that many states now
have and every state needs to have, is extreme risk laws,
(42:21):
and those laws empower families and law enforcement to act
on warning signs if somebody that they love is in crisis,
including for instance, well anybody, somebody who's having suicidal crisis,
somebody who's saying things that worry them in any way.
So twenty one states have these extreme risk laws. Research
(42:41):
is showing that they're incredibly important for having families have
something that they can do. And when you talk about
school shootings, you know what's really clear is that kids
give off many warning signs. In fact, the Secret Service
did a study over a decade and they found that
one hundred percent of school shooters shows some sort of
(43:02):
concerning behavior in the lead up to it, and seventy
seven percent of the time at least one other person
knew right.
Speaker 4 (43:08):
And it's probably really more.
Speaker 11 (43:10):
Probably more right. So in that case, the whole chain
of events and there's multiple moments at which somebody could intervene. Unfortunately,
too often it doesn't happen. And I would say this
is for me, another really important point is one of
the reasons that it doesn't happen is because kids don't
have an adult in the school in too many cases
(43:30):
that they feel that they trust, that they feel comfortable
confiding in and why is this. I think one of
the reasons is because teachers are carrying guns and schools
are becoming like fortresses with you know, metal detectors and
bulletproof this, and it really erodes the trust the kids need.
And for me, you know, as a parent, the most
(43:50):
frustrating thing after these horrific shootings is when you the
media interviews kids and they found that so many of
the kids in the school knew that the kid was
in crisis, that the kid was being abused or bullying,
that the kid had a gun, and they were putting
photographs of it on social media, but yet no adult
was alerted to this, And that, for me, is one
(44:13):
of the most important school based actions that we can
do to reduce school shootings is to create a trusting
and nurturing school climate instead of a fortress with the
school official town and guns. It's antithetical to what we're
trying to do and to the solution that more.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
Money for mental health.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
I mean, is it more money for schools, is it
money going to different places?
Speaker 4 (44:35):
I mean, what is the plan?
Speaker 11 (44:37):
Yes to all of it. Certainly more money for mental
health counselors, better training for mental health counselors, a better
ratio of mental health counselors to students. Also, more training
of the whole school, everybody, all the staff in the
school to understand warning signs and to think about, you know,
how to create a nurturing and a tru trusting in
(45:00):
school climate and school environment. So yes, and you know,
less money going to very expensive high tech solutions that
actually are not proven to work. They ciphe in money
off of our underfunded schools in the first place. They
create an environment that's intimidating and that does not breed trust.
(45:23):
And they're particularly bad for kids of color because in
those schools and in those situations, you know, implicit bias,
you know, tends to implicate them. So it's even further
sort of unhelpful.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
When you look at school shootings, they are largely an
American phenomenon.
Speaker 4 (45:41):
They happen in other places, but we have the most Is.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
That because of the guns, or is it because of
the culture, or is it because of both? And there
is for sure a lot more pushback than there once
but and still very much a fact of American life.
Speaker 11 (45:57):
It's a fact of American life because of the guns.
There's not more mental illness in this country than our
sort of peer other peer countries. The rate of mental
illness is pretty much the same. There's not more you know,
pressure or bullying in schools, you know, adolescence bully one another,
Like that's certainly something that happens, you know, in every country.
(46:19):
It's you know, more guns per capita than any other
country in the world. We have three hundred and fifty
billion guns in circulation in this country. In fact, only
Yemen comes close to the guns personnel Yemen's country, and
Yemen has been in a civil war for a decade.
Speaker 4 (46:36):
Yeah, absolutely the same.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
Yemen is not a country in a great place right now.
Speaker 4 (46:41):
So the idea that Yemen in the United States are
tied is probably not great.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
If you're listening to this, like what should Americans be
doing on guns? If you're just a sort of casual
but exasperated listener, what do you suggest people do?
Speaker 11 (46:59):
There's I think a lot of things that people can
do sort of. First of all, gun owners can make
sure they're locking their guns, storing their guns securely so
that's locked, unloaded and separate from the ammunition. Second thing
is parents when they send their kids over to somebody
else's house for a playdates. Just have the conversation with
a parent, do you have any guns and if so,
are they locked securely? Then you avoid that tragedy that
(47:23):
is so preventable of kids getting their hands on a
loaded gun. So that's kind of our actions. The second
thing is to really engage with your school to make
sure that they're doing the things that the facts show
really make a difference and not spending resources and money
on things that traumatize kids and that harm them and
(47:43):
that don't make a shooting incident less deadly. And then
the third thing is to support lawmakers who understand that,
you know, common sense gun laws are not about taking
guns away. They're about keeping us safe and keeping our
kids safe in this country. So those are extreme risk
laws and secure storage laws sort of top of mind,
(48:04):
and other laws as well. Thank you so much, You're welcome.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
Now moment perfectly, Jesse Cannon, Molly John Fast.
Speaker 5 (48:17):
This interview in Time magazine is really getting a lot
of people scared.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
What are you seeing here?
Speaker 1 (48:22):
Trump did an interview with Time magazine which is just
terrific and includes a lot of really scary plans for
twenty twenty five. If he is able to get elected,
including detention camps US military at both the border and
inland national abortion bands. He would let Red States monitor
(48:44):
women's pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bands. He
would at his personal description withhold funds appropriated by Congress.
Speaker 4 (48:53):
According to top.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
Advisors, he'd be willing to fire US attorney who doesn't
carry out his orders to prosecute someone. Basically, it'll be
like every bleak dystopia mashed up together, and that guy
is pulling very well, and that is our moment of fuckery.
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
(49:14):
every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best minds
in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. And again, 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 Donald Trump has been fined for
contempt of court.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
We have such a great show for you.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Senator Tammy Duckworth stops by to talk to us about
IVF and Democrats trying to protect it. Then we'll be
joined by Sarah Bird Sharps, who is the senior director
of research for every Town for Gun Safety, to talk
about Tennessee's horrifying new law which puts more guns in schools.
(00:36):
But first we have the host of the Mary Trump Show,
the one the only Mary Trump.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Welcome back, my friend and.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Yours the only good member of the entire Trump family,
Mary Trump.
Speaker 3 (00:50):
Well, my kid's pretty awesome, that's say.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Right, right, all right, okay, I'm so sorry. That's a
really good points. Yes, one of the few.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Members it's you know, she's like a unicorn. Yeah, I
mean I love that.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
So let's talk about this trial that is going on,
the Trump push money trial. I mean, it is what's
so interesting to me. And we've talked about this before,
and like, I think we could pull this back to
sort of make it even more of a of a thing,
but you know it really is true, Like this is
(01:26):
the first time the guy has ever been held accountable
for anything ever.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Right, yes, yeah, in any serious real way for sure.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
And like as you're watching it, I mean you are
not watching this in real time because first of all,
there are no cameras in the court room.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
But also like, I am so sick of your uncle.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
I can only imagine how sick of him you are.
Speaker 3 (01:51):
Yeah, I actually word about that yesterday. I was like,
I am so tired of him. I'm tired of every
aspect of being right. I mean, even if you were like.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
A normal political candidate, which isn't I mean, he is
like a not very smart guy who's somehow managed to
almost end American democracy multiple times.
Speaker 5 (02:10):
Right.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
I mean he's not a genius. He just sort of
hits it, right, right, I mean isn't that really what
it is?
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Yeah? And I don't mean this in an ad hominem way.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
He's grotesque, right, No, he's definitely grotesque.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
But I mean like the fact that he's managed to.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Capture the zeitgeist well and then just bang us over
the head again and again.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Right, and that gain that's the point it's because it's
isn't just the incessant coverage of him, it's also the
people he subjects us to and will subject us to again.
You know, imagine Stephen Miller being head of the Department
of Homeland Security, or you know, Jason Miller being Attorney general,
(02:56):
or Steve Badabg a jorney, like the people people he
surrounds himself with the way he warps people who might
otherwise be behave normally like his attorney.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, that's such a good point about I would love
you to talk about that, because that is something I
think a lot about it. Who was I taught there
was someone smart I was talking to about how one
of the things Trump does is he makes these people
who are otherwise good lawyers.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Behave in such a way as to ruin themselves.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
Yeah, and it's almost to a person, and it's also
almost always self defeating, right the way, and his name
escapes me at the moment, Todd Bland.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Todd Blanche, Jim Trustee, I come from.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Well, Jim Trustee was like the first of these trumpy
lawyers who ruined himself for right, Like they are trumpy
lawyers like Rudy who were already ruined, right, Yes, and right,
They're like two categories of Trump lawyers. There are the
people like Rudy who are just you know, they were
never really lawyers. And then there are the people like
(04:08):
Jim Trustee and even the guy who's arguing in front
of the Supreme Corps, who clearly are smart, but who
are also ruining themselves for Trump in different ways.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Yeah, and the question remains why, yes, why.
Speaker 6 (04:25):
As far as I'm aware, Todd Blade had to leave
White Shoot firm. And it's not just that he did it,
it's the case for which he did it.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
It is this leaziest.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
New York tablooioist piece of lime that he's waiting through
and transforming himself into a creature that is so unlike
him he needs because of his client is sitting there
and judging him to be this tough, aggressive, off putting
(04:58):
guy who is based lost all credibility with the judge
in week two, so that Donald don't beat him up afterwards,
even if it undermines this defense.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
It's craziness, yes, And it's also like a lot of
the stuff that they're saying, right, A lot of these
these arguments that they're using are arguments that Trump has
sort of asked them.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
To use, you know, from the very embarrassing opening gambit
of why he's calling him mister president.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
Right exactly.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
And you know, if we look back, this case is
just getting started. But if we look back at the
Trump civil case with Egene, we really see that at
every point Candidate Trump hurt defend on Trump right, Like
defending Trump is up there, and he could have just said,
you know, I don't have the tens of millions of
(05:52):
dollars here, and instead he was like, not.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
Only do I have the tens of millions of dollars.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Yes, the hundreds of millions in.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Right in cash, but yet my bond is faulty. But
that's not for that is obviously because I have so
much money.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Yes, it's just so he has so much money that
he can't come up with the bond and he has
to barber money and pay interest because that's what rich
people do, who know.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
Right, I mean?
Speaker 7 (06:20):
So it basically is, as you say, this crossroads or sorry,
this this tension between the candidate and the defendant, and
the defendant will undermine the candidate unless the defendant decides
to undermine his case.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
And that's what he's going to do you know, Donald
isn't just as in the civil case, he's not going
to say he doesn't have the money because that would
be a concession to the fact that he's kind of
a loser. And in this trial, even if he wants
de lays or he you know, needs a break from it,
he's not going to call him sick because that would
make him look weak. Although as if he doesn't look
(06:58):
weak already by complaining about our called it is in
the courtroom. Get a flip in Parka.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
Yeah, I mean I don't understand why, Like you can't
have a sweater under the jacket.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
Could you imagine a been a sweater though? Like, think
about it.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
But it's also like the falling asleep.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
I remember early days in twenty nineteen, before or maybe
twenty twenty, when this campaign was started going that someone
said to me, you know, it's a real risk for
Trump to say that Biden is you know, basically Trump's
whole thing was that Biden is old. Right, he's old,
and that he has dementia and da da da da da, which.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
The mainstream media has run with.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Right, this is Trump really was, you know in twenty sixteen,
twenty seventeen, the first and hopefully last Trump administration. They were,
they were there was a piece bag Trump assignment editor right.
Speaker 8 (07:52):
That he'd come up with some crazy idea like buying Greenland,
and then we'd see even United States SATs write op
eds about what a brilliant idea that was.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
And that sort of happened with Trump saying that Biden
was old and infirmed and doddering, and the mainstream media
picked that up and ran numerous stories about how old
he was. But what I think is interesting is someone
said to me around that time.
Speaker 9 (08:17):
You know that this is a dangerous play for Trump
because Trump is only three years younger than Biden. And
so when you see him fall in and out of
sleep in the courtroom, and obviously it's hours and hours
and hours, and you can't drink diet coke and whatever,
but still there is a sense this is a person
who has spent the last eight years.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
Saying that Biden is sleepy.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Joe, and here is Trump actually sleeping.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Yeah, his projections will come back to bite him, for sure,
and it is in this instance. And I think it's
also revealing just what a scam it was to go
after Biden's age because what are your criteria for? Because
Biden speaks more carefully because of his ser and more softly,
(09:06):
and because he walks stiffly.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
He broke his foot.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
There's a whole thing about how he broke his foot,
and maybe.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
That is that is worth three points in polling.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
I read that somewhere.
Speaker 10 (09:18):
But then you look at the other person who he's
acting unhinged and delusional vigorously, So that's better.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
I don't know. I think that the media it's time
for them to look in the mirror and do a
little soul searching here because, as we've learned to our chagrin,
and that's like the understatement of the millennium, we don't
have a Supreme Court that is interested in protecting democracy.
So we really need the force estate to step up.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Last week it was like yet another week of the
Supreme Court doing things that were just what we sort
of suspected they would do.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
But you know, it was a confirmation you never wanted.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
Yeah, And it was back to back to back of
just a heartbreak and cruelty and viciousness and intellectual dishonesty
and mag of insanity. So it makes what's happening in
New York and what may happen in Georgia all the
more someday, someday where we can be aspirational, because we
(10:27):
always have to look at this stuff on two levels. Unfortunately,
because Donald is the presumptive Republican nominee for the presidency.
I think that these trials, and we've talked about this,
this trial in particular in New York, even the civil
trials they take, they're taking a toll.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Yeah, he's trapped there.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
He doesn't have a choice, you know, he can have
his die cookes. And for somebody who drinks twelve a day, like,
being without one for four hours is probably very debilitating.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
They're so bad for you.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
I'm gonna have a coke coformative.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Absolutely, absolutely. So we need people to see that. We
need people to see that he cannot stand being bound
by rules that the rest of us have to live
by all the time. He can't handle scrutiny, He can't
handle honesty, you know, he can't. He can't go a
day without breaking a gag order again.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Right, yeah, he got this is coming out on Wednesday,
But on Tuesday, Trump got yet again sanctioned.
Speaker 4 (11:26):
For more gag order violation.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Yeah, and then we have another hearing on Thursday to
deal with the latest ones, and it will be interesting
to see given the fact that the judge gave him
a financial penalty today and said, unfortunately, I can't you know,
I can assign a penalty that's big enough to make
a difference to somebody who is as rich as you
claim to be. We're looking at potential jail time, right,
(11:49):
So we need to keep that. That kind of stuff
needs to keep happening. But then the Supreme Court, and
obviously the most important thing is the Supreme Court is
certainly the super majority of these fanatics, these anti democratic
fanatics are held bent on destroying American democracy in order
to help out Donald Trump. Go wrap your brain around that.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
But it also I cannot I'm sorry, I cannot wrap
my brain around it.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Stupid, it's impossible.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
What that hearing did was give him a much needed boost,
and like it's like people just keep bailing this guy out,
and it's just infuriating. There's not a word strong enough
to describe what that feels like anymore.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
It's so interesting because it's like one of the things
we in those salad days of twenty twenty, when we
all thought that there would be accountability for your problems.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
But right, well, we also all thought we're going to
dive COVID.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
But I think about this idea, like when you listen
to Justice Thomas or just as Alido, Trump's to Trump's
Michael Cohen on the Supreme Court is just as Alito right,
And I think like Trump's Rudy is just as Thomas right.
Those two will do anything for their guy. When you
(13:07):
hear them, you know, talking about how there has to
be presidential immunity for crimes because you know, otherwise the
presidency though it's gone on.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
Well you know for the last two hundred plus years.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
Now, you know, if you don't have immunity for doing crimes,
it's going to be a real problem. I think a
lot about like how really affluent white men have gotten
away with it pretty much since the country's inception.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Well that's why when when people say the system, some
people say the system is broken, and some people respond
by saying that the system is working exactly as it
was designed to You kind of see, they have a
point because this system was designed by a bunch of rich, landed,
generally enslaving white men who wanted to protect their own
(13:57):
power at any costs, and because we never challenged that
in any sustained way. I mean we did it in
serious ways, but never in any sustained way. I mean,
look what happened after reconstruction. Look where we are visa
via Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. I mean,
it's all unraveling because we one side has been building
(14:21):
towards having people like Donald Trump at the head of
the party and you know, wielding real power, while the
rest of us think, oh, we did that, so let's
be complacent, now.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Right, I mean, for sure.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
And it's also I just think that the guard rails
did not hold. No, not to put too fine a point.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
On it, but it's true, and it's very sobering, and
I think it is a stark reminder of the dangers
of thinking that democracy.
Speaker 5 (14:50):
Is a goal.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
It's not a goal.
Speaker 5 (14:53):
It's a process.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
It's organic, it's living, and we need to keep fighting
for it. It doesn't just stop. And we think, you know,
unless we're a twenty fourth century starfleet, in which case
we love it and.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
We're in good shape.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Yeah, it is just completely strange to think of us
in this situation now, where it still feels really precarious, right,
I mean if Trump wins. You know, I was walking
down the street the other day and a woman came
over to me who was young, and said, Trump can't
(15:28):
possibly win, can he?
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Right?
Speaker 1 (15:32):
I mean that's what And it's what we say to
each other all the time, right, like, Trump can't possibly win,
canny and he could?
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Yeah, And it's because so many malign forces are lined up.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
To assist him, right, say more about that.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
Well, as we just saw with the Supreme Court, how
long have people been saying, well, the rule of law
is going to take care of this. Well, maybe not.
And do we really think that if by some tragedy
he gets back into the White House, that they're going
to care about state charges. No, they'll figure something out,
(16:12):
they'll jail the justice Mersham or whatever. We've had. Obviously,
the media, many many outlets, corporate media outlets, have been
complicit in either both sides, ism or false equivalency or
the DOJ you know, in terms of making so long,
(16:32):
because what does that do? That normalizes? We got to
a point where people are like, well, how could it
be a big deal if it took so long? Right,
if it were such a big deal, then they would
have dealt with it immediately. So that has been an
enormous disservice Americans and certainly to the people who went
(16:53):
through January sixth. It put us in a situation where
tens of millions of voters are going to be once
again going to the voting with the November without all
of the information.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Mary Trump, thank you for joining my pleasure.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Spring is here and I bet you are trying to
look fashionable, So why not pick up some fashionable all
new Fast Politics merchandise. We just opened a news store
with all new designs just for you. Get t shirts, hoodies, hats,
and top bags. To grab some head to fastpolitics dot com.
(17:36):
Tammy Duckworth is the junior Senator from Illinois. Welcome to
Fast Politics, Senator Dockworth.
Speaker 5 (17:42):
It's good to be Ellen. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (17:45):
I'm always a fan of yours.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
This IVF thing is a topic that I cannot stop
thinking talking about. Where are we right now with IVF
protection in the Senate?
Speaker 5 (17:57):
Well, I have the best IVF protect action bill that
I brought up with unanimous consent, which is a way
that you can pass legislation here where if nobody objects
to it, you pass it and then it can go
to the House to be voted on. And after all,
my Republican colleagues said that, oh no, they supported IVF.
They stood up and opposed, and in fact, one of
the reasons they gave for opposing my IVF bill was
(18:20):
that they were afraid that I would allow for the
creation of human animal chimera babies.
Speaker 1 (18:26):
Ooh, yes, our senator is saying this, right, This is
a senator saying this.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Is it Tommy Tuberville though.
Speaker 5 (18:34):
No, no, is City Height Smith.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Yeah that makes sense, all right, that tracks.
Speaker 5 (18:39):
Yeah, So we're going to get a vote on the floor.
So Leader Schumer has agreed that he's going to bring
a vote to the floor and it's going to be
the Protect IVF Act. And basically, the bottom line is
all we're looking to do is just create a statutory
right to access IVF if you want to have IVF.
Doesn't force a meaning to get it. It just says
if you want to get IVF, you can. And it
says that doctors that want to offer IVF services have
(19:02):
the right to offer IBF services regardless of the state
that they live in that they practice in, and that
health insurance companies have the right to cover IVF services
if they want to offer it. So it doesn't actually
force anybody to seek it or offer it or provide it.
It just says we have a right to do so.
And that will be coming up to the floor for
a vote. Right now, we're working on FAA reauthorization, and
(19:23):
sometime after that, hopefully at some point before we get
too far into the summer, we'll have a vote on
protecting IVF. And let's see how many Republicans who say
they support IVF actually vote for or against it.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
So IVF, all of this IVF banning, legislating, and regulating
comes from Republicans' obsession with embryonic personhood, which is now
being pushed by the Heritage Foundation.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
When did you encounter this?
Speaker 1 (19:51):
Because I sort of know where I was when I
encountered this idea that embryos were people.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
And when you encountered it, were you shocked?
Speaker 5 (20:00):
So I started talking about the potential danger for access
to IVF back in twenty fourteen, Wow, because Queen fourteen,
I was going through IVF and I was a congresswoman
in the House, and my Republican colleagues started talking about
a fertilized egg being a person with person would rights.
(20:21):
At back point in time, my doctor and I had
fertilized five eggs and we were looking to get me
pregnant for the first time. And he said, hey, these
five eggs we were able to fertilize, three are non viable.
If I were to put them in you, they would
cause a miscarriage. So the best thing we can do
is to discard these. And then just as he was
doing that, he said, by the way, if these person
(20:43):
who would bills that are popping up all around the country,
both at the federal level but then also those state
level happens, what we're doing today would be deemed could
potentially be dean manslaughter or murder because we were discarding
three fertilized eggs. They're non viable, but there's still three
fertilized eggs. I could be charged as a doctor with
manslaughter or murder. And you could be accessory to manslaughter
(21:05):
or murder because you're telling me go ahead and discard
of those non viable fertilized eggs. And that was when
the light bulb went on for me, and I went, oh,
my god, this is not just about abortion, This is
not just about you know, six week bands and all
this this is about people like me who are trying
to start families. And so where we are today is
(21:26):
that when you have a state Supreme court like the
one in Alabama makes a decision that you know, fertilized
egg is an extra uteral child and as a person,
it means that even though they haven't banned IVF, it
means that essentially they have because doctors are not going
(21:47):
to provide IVF services in places where a fertilized egg
is considered a human being. And by the way, this
affects more than just IBF. It also affects birth control
devices like IUD that prevents implantation of fertilized.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Egg and the morning after pill too, on.
Speaker 5 (22:02):
The morning after pill. And by the way, all of
this is thanks to Donald Trump. Because of him and
Stackey the Supreme Court, we got to a point where that,
you know, the Dodds decision overturned Roe v. Wade, and
that is what Republicans campaign for for decades. And now
we're in a world where states have all these different laws,
and many of them have all sorts of laws now
(22:23):
in place that essentially makes it impossible to access IVF
without putting the person with the uterus or the doctor
in legal jeopardy for manslaughter or murder charges.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
It is so incredibly insane. I want to talk about
Alabama for another minute, because this is the first date
that did it. We saw immediately that these doctors, you know,
you really struck by sit in this post row America,
how much doctors do not want to lose their licenses
or go to jail. I mean, you know, they just
closed all the IVF clinics in the state until the governor,
(22:59):
Governor k Ivy indemnify them from killing embryos, which again,
I feel like that's so important and meaningful because what
she was saying was not embryos aren't people.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
Just you know, it's okay in this case, right.
Speaker 5 (23:16):
Right, but our future governor could change their mind that point.
They're just saying, oh, yeah, you're still killing a person
when you discard a non viable fertilized egg. We're just
not going to prosecute you. Well, Alabama was the first
day where the Supreme Court said that Forliz's egg is
a human being. You should know that Louisiana has already
(23:38):
had a law on the books that prohibits the discarding
fertilized eggs from IVF procedures. So they already have a
law on the books. So if you can't get IVF
and Louisiana or had IVF in Louisiana in the past,
and you have a frozen egg or for you know,
some frozen eggs, not even embryos in some cases, So
you have embryos, you have you know, the different stages
and ga meet and before that is just have FARIZEDX.
(23:59):
You can't just guard any of that in Louisiana. So
now is that chowderbased because I've kept a fertilized egg
on ice for decades?
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Right, No, you could theoretically be considered a murderer by
letting a frozen embryo be discarded, even a.
Speaker 5 (24:16):
Non viable one. And Texas Right for Life who wrote
the Texas bounty laws that lets people sue the uber
driver who drove you to the airport so you could
catch a flight to Illinois to get an abortion. The
people who wrote that law have on their web page
that you know they're neutral. They can get to neutral
on IVF only if the woman agrees to have every
(24:37):
fertilized egg implanted, including the non viable ones that would
cause miscarriages. This is where we're going in this country.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
So you would have to have a non viable egg
implanted if you wanted to have IVF, even though the
non viable egg would then be miscarried and might cause
you to miscarry the viable embryos too.
Speaker 5 (25:01):
Yes, Or if you knew that you had in my case,
three non viable eggs and you don't want to jeopardize
your one viable egg, you would be forced to implant
one non viable egg at a time and go through
three miscarriages.
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Jesus.
Speaker 5 (25:18):
And by the way, that's expensive, not otherwise it is devastating,
but it's also every procedure is incredibly expensive and hard
on the body, with all of the drugs you have
to take and inject in all that.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Yes, it feels like it's set up in a way
to make things as unpleasant for women as possible. When
you read the Heritage Foundation, I don't know if you've
got on their twenty twenty five site, but it's the
stuff of nightmare fuels.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
There's a whole sort of.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
Thesis about how why isn't IVF regulated? These are the
people who don't want to regulate anything. But they're like
IVS can cost one thing in one parts and other
and other parts. And why isn't there greater regulation for IVF?
I mean, it doesn't this seem so nakedly misogynistic. Aren't
you sort of shocked by the hypocrisy? You probably aren't,
(26:13):
but I'm just curious what your take is.
Speaker 5 (26:14):
Well, yeah, I mean there's a hypocrisy, but there's also
science denial as part of it. And well, my bill
that says you'd have the right to access IVF says
that the IVF that is provided must be what is
accepted medical practice, not experimental stuff, not you know, human
animal camera expected. But that's what they bring up. And
(26:38):
so when when you see things like Heritage Foundations saying
that you need to regulate IVF because it will be
the wild broad West, that is really science denial of
where the science really is today. And frankly, you know,
women's most intimate health decisions should not be up for
debate in every state and they should not be decided
by extreme right wing judges and science denial, and frankly,
(27:01):
you know we're being dragged back to laws at one
hundred and sixty years old in some states, and we
really do need to pass legislation that provides a natutory
right for women to have access to IBF. I mean,
you know it is there is definitely a misogynistic aspect
of this, where women can be trusted to make their
(27:21):
own health decisions. When you start with IVF, where do
you go next? Do I start to have to go
and get my husband's permission to take an aspirint? Is
that what's next?
Speaker 2 (27:31):
That is sort of what's next? Right?
Speaker 1 (27:33):
I listen to two really insane Supreme Court decisions this session.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
You'll remember that after.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
Jobs, I think it was Justice Roberts who said that
now they were done with abortion. Two years later they
are not done with abortion. You had m tala. Can
we talk about that? Because so this is this emergency medicine. Basically,
the Biden administration is suing Idaho because Idaho has got
(28:03):
these women who are you know, dying of miscarriages and
having to be flown out of the state because Idaho
won't save their lives. Were you sort of shocked by
that decision? Probably not because you're used to this insanity,
But I'm curious what your take is.
Speaker 5 (28:20):
I'm not shocked by it. Unfortunately, this is what happens,
you know, And again this goes back to what republic
has been working on for decades, which is overturned protections
ro Vy Wade what Donald Trump worked very hard along
with Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans to basically steal Supreme
Court seats. This is what the Supreme Court justices who
lied to members of the Senate right well, who said that,
(28:44):
oh no, I'm not going to gut Roe v. Wade
and then turn around and did exactly that. This is
where you end up. And I live in Illinois. I'm
surrounded by states where women are being told by doctors
you need to go sit in your car outside at
the emergency room and bleed out a little bit more
until you get to the point where you are nearer
(29:04):
to death before I can work of you. Yeah, you know,
and look in my state, we welcome women and we've
trusted them to make their own reproductive choice, and we
welcome doctors who want to move from these other states
to Illinois. But this is really bad for women, especially
lower income women in these states that are losing these doctors.
You're seeing obgui ns flee literally fleeing these states like
(29:27):
Louisiana and Alabama and Texas.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
And Florida, now Tennessee and.
Speaker 5 (29:33):
Tennessee, and you're going to see, you know, women in
these states not have access to basic health share.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
We just talked for a second about this science denihilism,
which does seem to really be an enormous and important
thread in this Republican party. You know, it's been sort
of latent through the Bushiers. You know, it's not out
of nowhere, but it does strike me that COVID really
helped it along. Like these people did not come out
(30:00):
to COVID being like thank God for vaccines.
Speaker 5 (30:03):
No, no, but it goes back right with the science
of denial. This, this does go back. But where we
are today is really when it comes to women losing
their rights to reproductive health care, making their own reproductive
healthcare decision. This begins out of the abortion and the
anti abortion movement. And frankly, if you go back and
(30:23):
you look at some of these groups, they've always said
that they would go after IVF, but they didn't want
to talk about it because first and foremost they wanted
to go after abortion. And you know, call themselves pro
pro life. How can you be pro life and be
against a procedure like IVF that helps people to create life.
And you know, when Alabama, when that state Supreme Court
decision happened, you saw interviews with women who and you know,
(30:45):
they were asked questions like, well, who did you vote for?
You know, Oh, I'm pro I'm pro life. Of course
I voted for that joke, you know, so of course
I voted these legislators and I voted for laws to
end abortion. But and yes, I believe that, you know,
for LiF's acreci human being. But why are you preventing
me from getting my IVF? They're very disconnected from the
science behind it. It's like, well, this is the logical
(31:07):
next step from what were you're doing.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Abortion has always been a controversial issue, right, There's always been.
I mean it's more it's now more popular than it's
ever been because it was taken away. But IVF is
wildly popular. There's no one, I mean, former Vice President
Mike Pence had IVF right, So, you know, like they're
(31:29):
trying to get people against something they aren't against.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
Do you think this will work? And also what do
you think the thinking here is?
Speaker 5 (31:36):
We're at a play. This is basically an anti choice
monster of Republicans' own making because they were going after abortion,
and they became more and more extreme. Sixteen week bands,
twelve weeks ban, six week bands for Liz's egg as
a human being, So a complete ban, a complete band
isn't enough. So for Li's egg has to be a
(31:56):
human being, you know. And I've been warning that IVA
would be next for you. And this is what Republicans
have gotten us to. And frankly, it's a far cry
away from the justice and reproductive freedom that all families deserve.
But I'm not surprised that we're here. This is just
the next logical step. And I don't think people understand again,
(32:17):
this is a science portion. I mean, I had a
miscarriage in one of my IVF cycles and I had
to have a DNC in order to be able to
clear out my uterus in order to start my next
IVF cycle to have my daughter. Now who's you know,
who's six years old. But I would not have been
able to do that if I were living in one
of these states that had these total bands. Were where
(32:39):
we are because Republican politicians jumped on the anti abortion
bandwagon without fooling understanding where it was going to get to,
or in some cases maybe they did and this was
always their goal. But frankly, ultimately this is because of them,
and this is because of Donald Trump where we find
ourselves today. Thank you, Senator Dockworth, Thank you for having
(32:59):
me on.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Sarah Bird Sharps is the senior director of research for
Every Town for Gun Safety.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Welcome to Fast Politics, Sarah.
Speaker 11 (33:13):
Thank you, and thanks so much for your interest in
this really important issue.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
Yeah, I think this is kind of the most important issue.
You know, it's about to sort of say that it's hyperbolic,
but I actually don't think it is. I actually think
it is the most important issue. So we're talking about
school shootings and keeping kids safe in school, and you
have a plan to keep kids safe in school. Let
me guess that it doesn't involve arming the children and teachers.
Speaker 11 (33:41):
That would be correct.
Speaker 4 (33:42):
So tell me talk to me about what that entails.
Speaker 11 (33:45):
So I'm going to start out by kind of setting
the stage by saying that if more guns made us safer,
the United States, with more guns per person than any
other nation, would be the safest country in the world.
And instead we have a on death rate that's thirteen
times higher than our peer high income countries. So to
(34:06):
my view and based on you know, a lot of
research on this, arming teachers is not the answer.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
So let's talk about what the answer.
Speaker 11 (34:14):
Is, sure, and sort of more generally, we need to
focus on intervening before a gun gets into the school, right,
because we've already failed if somebody has brought a gun
into a school to do harm, and so the arming
of teachers is really way too late to be trying
to intervene in this situation.
Speaker 4 (34:32):
How do you do that?
Speaker 11 (34:33):
So the first thing is to understand sort of who
these shooters are so that you can then begin to
think about what you know would prevent them. And one
thing is that most shooters are a Kurner, former student
from that school. And I think that the Department of
Justice did a stunding study over a couple of decades
and they found that nine to ten school shooters over
(34:55):
many many years were a Kerner, a former student. So
when you understand that, you understand that some of the
solutions that have been proposed are just completely unrealistic and
in fact sometimes even dangerous. So you know, these really
expensive metal detectors and all the bulletproof glass and all
of these things, and even the drills only worked the
(35:16):
extent that the former or current student knows exactly what
the protocol is and what's happening at what time and where.
So that's that's really an important thing to understand. The
other thing about knowing that it's a current or former
student that really makes arming teachers much more complicated is
that you're asking a teacher to convert themselves into some
(35:37):
kind of you know, sharpshooter in the face of somebody
who they may have taught or they knew, you know,
over many years. It's unrealistic.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
Yeah, I mean, I also think like the teachers don't
become teachers to kill students exactly.
Speaker 11 (35:52):
And in fact, you know, all of the sort of
the National Education Association that all of the member or
organizations of teachers in this country pose it but pose
arming teachers, and that's you know, tens of thousands of
teachers in this country. It's not what they signed up for.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Yeah, it's a terrible idea.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
One of the fundamental things that I'm struck by is
this idea, if you have a gun in your house,
you're significantly more likely to be shot by accident, Right,
I mean, guns just don't seem to protect in.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
The way that their pr tells us they.
Speaker 11 (36:22):
Do absolutely, And you know, we track on intentional shootings
and they're happening every day in this country. People are
getting you know, shot and killed or killing themselves or
injuring themselves every day from a gun that was not
securely stored. Particularly children. There's a you know, many Americans
don't realize that nearly once a day in this country
(36:45):
a child gets their hand on an loaded, unlocked gun
and shoots themselves or someone else. So, you know, the
message there is it's on adults to have the responsibility
to keep the guns locked up, securely and securely stored.
And that relates to schools too, because seventy percent of
the guns that come into schools with a shooter came
(37:08):
from the home of a parent or a close relative.
So the solution is not to have more guns on
more people in the schools. It's to make sure that
the homes are places where guns are not accessible to children.
Speaker 1 (37:21):
But one of the things I'm hoping you can talk
about is they need to raise the age to buy
automatic weapons.
Speaker 4 (37:29):
Can you talk about that?
Speaker 5 (37:30):
Sure?
Speaker 11 (37:30):
And some states in this country have a minimum age
requirement that requires either handguns or lung guns or both
not to be able to bought unless you're eighteen or older.
Many states don't, and those laws are proven to be
hugely impactful to prevent people who shouldn't have their hands
on guns people are too young. Twenty two states have
(37:52):
raised the minimum age for purchasing firearms and.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
Are those blue states?
Speaker 11 (37:56):
Many of them are.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
Yes.
Speaker 11 (37:59):
Federal law requires a person to be twenty one to
purchase a handgun, but only eighteen to buy a long gun,
including an assault weapon.
Speaker 4 (38:08):
So insane.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
The Supreme Court, very conservative, trumpy Supreme Court. Last year
there was a case where they fought with New York
State about New York State's stricter gun laws.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
Can you talk a little bit about that?
Speaker 5 (38:23):
Sure?
Speaker 11 (38:24):
So, I think you're talking about Bruin, right.
Speaker 4 (38:26):
I'm talking about Bruin. Yes.
Speaker 11 (38:27):
So, I mean basically, what a number of states, including
New York State, want is to be able to make decisions,
to have some discretion about whether somebody who wants to
buy a gun should be able to buy. The Supreme
Court said, nope, you know, if you can fulfill the
requirements and you don't have any record of mental health
prohibiting or a felony or a domestic violence restraining water.
(38:52):
There's no discretion in there, and they took that away.
Many states, the states that are impacted, including New York State,
have tried to find other ways to protect us. When
sort of one door closes, you know, we're trying to
open other doors to figure out what are what can
legally be done, you know, to reduce the you know,
one hundred and twenty gun desks a day in this country,
(39:14):
every day, day after day.
Speaker 1 (39:15):
I talked to Chris Murphy about this topic and I was,
you know, a little bit despairing, and he actually said, no,
there's real progress being made, and it's organizations.
Speaker 4 (39:26):
Like yours that are doing it.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
So can you talk to us about what the sort
of reasons to be hopeful here?
Speaker 5 (39:32):
Sure?
Speaker 11 (39:32):
And I am really hopeful. And I'm not generally given
to be a cup hip full kind of person, but
I am generally hopeful. One reason I'm hopeful is that
young people give me a lot of hope. They are
the generation that has grown up with you know, school
shootings and lockdowns and constant drills and all of these things.
It's impacting them in a in a profound way, and
(39:54):
they've decided to raise their voices. They're talking to legislators,
they're doing research, they're walking out of school rules. They're
really organizing to be able to change this. And that's
one thing that gives me hope. A second thing that
gives me hope is that there have been laws passed
in the last year, important laws that are safer, including
secure storage laws in a couple of New states that
(40:14):
didn't have them before, which you're holding gun owners accountable
for not locking their guns securely. And those laws are
some of the laws that research shows are the most
promising that really protect young people from suicide, kids from
getting guns that they bring into schools and cause school
shootings and more. And so you know, to me, those
(40:35):
laws immediately the minute they're signed can start to save lives.
Speaker 1 (40:39):
Do you think that, like the holding the parents accountable
what happened there in that shooting, do you think that
is actually helpful?
Speaker 11 (40:49):
It's extremely helpful. It reminds every parent, nobody, including that
family you know, wanted to go through the horror and
the trauma you know that has turned and that family
upside down forever, right, as well as the families of
the victims right. Seeing that in the news, I have
no doubt that other parents realized, oh, you never know,
(41:11):
we need to lock our guns securely. It's an extremely
important incentive, a reminder that is a basic responsibility of
a gun owner, and responsible gun owners know take storage seriously.
Speaker 5 (41:25):
And do it.
Speaker 11 (41:25):
You know, most gun owners store their guns securely. Unfortunately
millions don't. Many households have multiple guns in them, and
people think that, you know, they're going to keep one
gun out for self defense. There is a guarantee that
any children in that house know exactly where that gun is.
It's in some states criminal and in every state highly
(41:48):
highly irresponsible.
Speaker 1 (41:49):
What are the kind of things legislators should be doing
to help dissuade people from having guns in their house
or having them unsecured.
Speaker 11 (41:58):
So I would say it's not about having guns in
your house, it's about all of the ways that we
can make sure that guns are being stored securely, but
also that if anybody is in crisis around those guns,
that something is being done. So I think one of
the laws that's extremely promising and that many states now
have and every state needs to have, is extreme risk laws,
(42:21):
and those laws empower families and law enforcement to act
on warning signs if somebody that they love is in crisis,
including for instance, well anybody, somebody who's having suicidal crisis,
somebody who's saying things that worry them in any way.
So twenty one states have these extreme risk laws. Research
(42:41):
is showing that they're incredibly important for having families have
something that they can do. And when you talk about
school shootings, you know what's really clear is that kids
give off many warning signs. In fact, the Secret Service
did a study over a decade and they found that
one hundred percent of school shooters shows some sort of
(43:02):
concerning behavior in the lead up to it, and seventy
seven percent of the time at least one other person
knew right.
Speaker 4 (43:08):
And it's probably really more.
Speaker 11 (43:10):
Probably more right. So in that case, the whole chain
of events and there's multiple moments at which somebody could intervene. Unfortunately,
too often it doesn't happen. And I would say this
is for me, another really important point is one of
the reasons that it doesn't happen is because kids don't
have an adult in the school in too many cases
(43:30):
that they feel that they trust, that they feel comfortable
confiding in and why is this. I think one of
the reasons is because teachers are carrying guns and schools
are becoming like fortresses with you know, metal detectors and
bulletproof this, and it really erodes the trust the kids need.
And for me, you know, as a parent, the most
(43:50):
frustrating thing after these horrific shootings is when you the
media interviews kids and they found that so many of
the kids in the school knew that the kid was
in crisis, that the kid was being abused or bullying,
that the kid had a gun, and they were putting
photographs of it on social media, but yet no adult
was alerted to this, And that, for me, is one
(44:13):
of the most important school based actions that we can
do to reduce school shootings is to create a trusting
and nurturing school climate instead of a fortress with the
school official town and guns. It's antithetical to what we're
trying to do and to the solution that more.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
Money for mental health.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
I mean, is it more money for schools, is it
money going to different places?
Speaker 4 (44:35):
I mean, what is the plan?
Speaker 11 (44:37):
Yes to all of it. Certainly more money for mental
health counselors, better training for mental health counselors, a better
ratio of mental health counselors to students. Also, more training
of the whole school, everybody, all the staff in the
school to understand warning signs and to think about, you know,
how to create a nurturing and a tru trusting in
(45:00):
school climate and school environment. So yes, and you know,
less money going to very expensive high tech solutions that
actually are not proven to work. They ciphe in money
off of our underfunded schools in the first place. They
create an environment that's intimidating and that does not breed trust.
(45:23):
And they're particularly bad for kids of color because in
those schools and in those situations, you know, implicit bias,
you know, tends to implicate them. So it's even further
sort of unhelpful.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
When you look at school shootings, they are largely an
American phenomenon.
Speaker 4 (45:41):
They happen in other places, but we have the most Is.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
That because of the guns, or is it because of
the culture, or is it because of both? And there
is for sure a lot more pushback than there once
but and still very much a fact of American life.
Speaker 11 (45:57):
It's a fact of American life because of the guns.
There's not more mental illness in this country than our
sort of peer other peer countries. The rate of mental
illness is pretty much the same. There's not more you know,
pressure or bullying in schools, you know, adolescence bully one another,
Like that's certainly something that happens, you know, in every country.
(46:19):
It's you know, more guns per capita than any other
country in the world. We have three hundred and fifty
billion guns in circulation in this country. In fact, only
Yemen comes close to the guns personnel Yemen's country, and
Yemen has been in a civil war for a decade.
Speaker 4 (46:36):
Yeah, absolutely the same.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
Yemen is not a country in a great place right now.
Speaker 4 (46:41):
So the idea that Yemen in the United States are
tied is probably not great.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
If you're listening to this, like what should Americans be
doing on guns? If you're just a sort of casual
but exasperated listener, what do you suggest people do?
Speaker 11 (46:59):
There's I think a lot of things that people can
do sort of. First of all, gun owners can make
sure they're locking their guns, storing their guns securely so
that's locked, unloaded and separate from the ammunition. Second thing
is parents when they send their kids over to somebody
else's house for a playdates. Just have the conversation with
a parent, do you have any guns and if so,
are they locked securely? Then you avoid that tragedy that
(47:23):
is so preventable of kids getting their hands on a
loaded gun. So that's kind of our actions. The second
thing is to really engage with your school to make
sure that they're doing the things that the facts show
really make a difference and not spending resources and money
on things that traumatize kids and that harm them and
(47:43):
that don't make a shooting incident less deadly. And then
the third thing is to support lawmakers who understand that,
you know, common sense gun laws are not about taking
guns away. They're about keeping us safe and keeping our
kids safe in this country. So those are extreme risk
laws and secure storage laws sort of top of mind,
(48:04):
and other laws as well. Thank you so much, You're welcome.
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
Now moment perfectly, Jesse Cannon, Molly John Fast.
Speaker 5 (48:17):
This interview in Time magazine is really getting a lot
of people scared.
Speaker 2 (48:21):
What are you seeing here?
Speaker 1 (48:22):
Trump did an interview with Time magazine which is just
terrific and includes a lot of really scary plans for
twenty twenty five. If he is able to get elected,
including detention camps US military at both the border and
inland national abortion bands. He would let Red States monitor
(48:44):
women's pregnancies and prosecute those who violate abortion bands. He
would at his personal description withhold funds appropriated by Congress.
Speaker 4 (48:53):
According to top.
Speaker 1 (48:53):
Advisors, he'd be willing to fire US attorney who doesn't
carry out his orders to prosecute someone. Basically, it'll be
like every bleak dystopia mashed up together, and that guy
is pulling very well, and that is our moment of fuckery.
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
(49:14):
every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best minds
in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.
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