September 15, 2025 • 46 mins
The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson parses the right’s escalating rhetoric of revenge for Charlie Kirk’s death. Former chair of the Wisconsin Democrats Ben Wikler discusses how the Democratic Party effectively builds to counter the GOP.
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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 Republican Representative Michael McCall won't seek
re election after eleven terms. We have such a great
show for you today. The Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson
joins us to discuss the rights escalating rhetoric of revenge
(00:24):
for Charlie Kirk's death. Ben will talk to the former
chair of the Wisconsin Democrats, Ben Wickler about how the
Democratic Party effectively builds to counter the GOP.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
But first the news, so BALI, there is a leadership
fight a bruin. It seems Chris van Holland is looking
to become the leader in the Senate. Hakim Jefferies has
some choice words for him, but I think Chris is
dead on here and as the type of fighter I
think we could use personally.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Chris van Holland had this really good point about Mom
Dami and he said, yet many members of the Senate
and the House representing New York have stayed on the sidelines.
And he's right. He said that that kind of spineless
politics is what people are sick of. They need to
get behind him and get behind him.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Now that's about as boys words as Dems do. That's
like a political smack in the face to start a
fight whatever sek for.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Old white guys like this is as rough as they get.
And look, Holland is right. Mondanni won the nomination. He
won it by as it's not like there's a primary
going on. And I think what's really interesting about this
is it's not like Mondani is some unpopular candidate. He's
a really popular candidate. So then you have to ask
(01:40):
yourself think about this, Why are they not endorsing someone
who won their districts. These are politicians. They tend to
do things that are politically expedient, So what is the
move here? Why are they not doing it? And when
you think about it that way, the reasons they're not
doing it are pretty damn it.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I think Jeffries has long been accused by the left
of being hostile towards them in a way that they
can barely make sense of.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
I think the most important thing about Leader Jeffries is
that he is really bad at the Internet. And so
you may not love Gavin Newsom ideologically, but the guy
is good at the Internet.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
You can be Bernie Sanders would be nine billion years
old to be good at.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
The internets, AOC good at the Internet. There are a
lot of Democrats, Chris Murphy. Not anyone's idea of a
crazy leftist good at the internet. You know who's not
good at the internet. Leader Jeffries, Leader Jeffries. This is
what poor Justin said. Leader Jeffries will have more to
say about the general election, well advanced of November fourth,
(02:44):
by the way, in case for those keeping Scurt home,
we are at September fourteenth, so he really only has
six weeks if he's going to do it. Meanwhile, he said,
confuse New Yorkers are asking themselves a question Chris van who. No,
we're not. We know exactly who Chris van Holland is,
and making fun of Chris van Holland does not make
(03:06):
you then seem like you have the situation in hand.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah, okay, Well, speaking of situations, we're monitoring as the
joke quakes to go. The mayor of Memphis, Paul Jung,
says he's certainly not happy about Trump's National Guard deployment.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Nobody should be happy, right, I think we all need
to pause for a minute. The framing is a lie.
He's not sending the National Guard into fight crime. The
National Guard does not fight crime. The police fight crime.
The National Guard get there and they end up having
to do terrible jobs that they're not meant to be doing,
picking up trash, intimidating people. So the whole you know,
(03:43):
it's like reject Trump's framing. He didn't go to war
with universities because he cared about anti semitism. He went
to war with universities because they saw from Victor Orbond
that if you want to enact and authoritarian crackdowns, you
have to start with the universities. That's what this was.
(04:04):
So when you look at this, this is not about crime,
This is about deployment. This is about spectacle. And also,
by the way, this is about distracting from the tariff
fiasco and inflation. Trump has decided that going into Memphis
is better because Tennessee is a red state, and that
he'll be greeted as a liberator, you know, tends to be.
(04:25):
We are not greeted as liberators when our military role
into different cities, especially ones that have their own protocol
for protecting themselves.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
I thought part of trump Ism was that we learned
the lessons of Iraqis and now what he always claims,
but he didn't learn that they'll greet us as liberators.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Thing.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Listen, man, he's brought peace. He's brought peace everywhere. He's
brought peace to India and Pakistan, he's brought peace to
the Middle East.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
This is why he's going to get the.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Yeah, he's spent forty five piece deals in five days.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
That's what I've been told.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Do you remember when we were ninety trade deals in
ninety days?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
You know that seems to have stucked my mind because
there's a shit from every single day to forget about
all the lives. They tell, well, we never.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Got the deals. There were no deals, no deals, no deals,
just days.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Well.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Another myth of this administration is the Party of free speech.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Yes, they love free speech except sometimes do you.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Know what the Party of free speech is talk about doing?
A new bill would allow Marco Ruby of a strip
US citizens' passports over political speech.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
So we talked about this with Rip and my grandfather did,
in fact have his passport strip. The Supreme Court has
ruled against this. Now trumperol doesn't mind doing illegal stuff.
That's like kind of the brand a legal stuff. But
I do think that the fact that this crew has
decided that they're going to go after passports and maybe
they pass it, it's unconstitutional. It's against the Constitution. I mean,
(05:54):
I don't know, well the Supreme Court like rollover probably,
but I think we're seeing here that this is we're
just in water world here where they just make up stuff.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
So I find this really disturbing. This is balls onto
that banner of the cruelty is the point, and also
getting rich people stupid tax cuts that barely hurt them.
The Trump administration is canceling grants that support deaf, blind
students and special education teachers.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
This is cute.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
This is how we got here, right like, this is fraud, waste,
and abuse. I was told that the richest man in
the world, he's not the richest anymore, but the second
richest man in the world was going to cut out fraud, waste,
and abuse. What he meant was just getting rid of
money for teachers to teach disabled children. Wisconsin had planned
(06:42):
to work with these funds to include direct support of
deaf blind learners and their families in an effort to
recruit and retain new special education, teachers. It's one thing.
They cut all this international foreign aid, the kind of
stuff that you know, millions of people are going to
die from this, but this is just stuff that is like,
we have this ballooning debt, we have billionaires not paying taxes.
(07:05):
Like you guys can pay for deaf blind kids to
get teachers. I promise you can afford it. Rick Wilson
is the founder of the Lincoln Project and the host
of the Enemy's List. Hello, Rick Wilson, Mollie john Fast,
Great to.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Be back with you.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
You had a nice littification we did.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
We went to England and Renee and I spent a
few days in the Cotswalds and a few days in London.
When I was over there, their number one story in
the news for like four or five days was that
the deputy Prime Minister had not paid enough property taxes.
It wasn't did Trump nuke the moon? It was there
something cuckoo.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
There's still time. While you were away, Stephen Miller went
on Fox News and he said some stuff. We're gonna
We're gonna cut to the veil.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 5 (07:56):
There is a dynastic terrorism movement in this country, when
you see these organized docs and campaigns where the left
calls people enemies of the republic, calls them fascists, says
they're Nazis, says they're evil, says they have to be removed,
and then prince their addresses.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
What do you think they're.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
Trying to do.
Speaker 5 (08:14):
They are trying to inspire someone to murder them. That
is their objective, that is their intent.
Speaker 6 (08:21):
And when you see online Sean, as we've seen for
the last few days, tape after tape after tape of
federal workers, Beeracrez staffers and the Pentagon educators, professors, healthcare workers,
nurser nurses celebrating the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Speaker 5 (08:41):
These are radicalized people. There is a domestic terrorism movement
in this country.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
I just want to say, you think that the cardigan
is going to make him seem a little more mallow,
but it really it's I guess it's a fleece like
you want to like a guy in a gray fleece.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Look, I mean it is the It is the sort
of modern day business bro uniform you want to quarner
zip or a fleece. You know, it makes you it
seem like you're casual and yet still smart and sharp
and approachable and yet not necessarily rabid, bouncing off the
fucking walls. And you know, Stephen Miller, there's a real
(09:21):
tell in all of this. Steven Miller immediately goes to it. Oh,
they call us Nazis, they call us fascists. Well, listen, Stephen,
if the jack boot fits, wear it, well, I don't
think that.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
I think that the I think the name calling whatever right.
Nobody has ever been convinced of anything by calling someone
a name. The question I have is where are these nurses,
where are these federal employees celebrating this brutal killing, because
(09:53):
I have not seen that. Now. Maybe I'm siloed up,
but I'm not seen for fer.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
Did see a weeks ago Mike Lee and JD. Vance
and a whole bunch of other Republicans laughing and joking
about the murder of the former House speaker in Minnesota.
You know what I did see when Paul Pelosi was
beaten with a hammer by a crazy guy who was
inspired by MAGA. I saw Don Junior making jokes about
it online, thought it was hilarious, And frankly, we saw
(10:22):
Charlie Kirk hoping that that guy would get bailed out
at the time.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
So let's just pull back because Stephen Miller is basically
Trump's chief of staff. So this is not like some
guy on the internet saying this. This is the President's
chief of staff.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Not Molly. It's important to realize not only that Stephen
Miller is the effective head of the both the Justice
Department and the Department of Homeland Security.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Right she is.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
It controls those things top to bottom.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
And one of the things that I think has been
really interesting about this week that we've seen a lot
of is that we've seen people from Trump World and
how they're like, I'm thinking about cash Battel. So Cash
Battel was so worried about the way that this was
playing out in the media, social mainstream, and we have
(11:07):
now Steven Miller going on television, going on Fox News saying,
you know that he's going to sort of we ideal
I mean the goal what it sounds like to me
here and I certainly could be wrong, but it sounds
like ideological culling of the federal government.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Look, I think you have to expand past that. You
have people like Representative Clay Higgins, you have people across
the across the MAGA verse now saying that anybody who
doesn't sufficiently praise Charlie Kirk is going to be targeted.
And I think what you see Miller doing is taking
(11:43):
a tragic moment, a horrible moment of violence, and now
trying to weaponize it into a further expansion of the
power of the executive branch.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
When you have just doing they executive there, Yes we.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Need the state Department now saying that they want to
be able to cancel Americans passports if they say the
wrong things.
Speaker 7 (12:06):
This is an increasingly censor dark visionship. Yeah, well, such
a sentiship. It's the use of the power of the
state state to harm the political opponents of the president.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
It's funny because my grandfather after he got out of
jail caring mccarthier, they actually did take away his passport
and that's why the family went to Mexico after he
got a jail, because you could go to Mexico without
a passport. And they actually went to a very conservative
Supreme court and were given their passports back because the
(12:39):
court said you can't take people's passports away for political reasons. Now,
that was seventy five years ago. Now, our court is
significantly more conservative than it was I mean seventy five
years ago. I mean, I feel like this court. You
give them that question, they might decide differently.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
There was an article in The Times on Sunday about
the number of times the Supreme Court agrees with the
administration and the current Supreme Court. No Supreme court in
history has ever agreed with an administration more frequently than
this one does. So, you know, Donald Trump could say
my opponents have to have to be branded in the
middle of their forehead with an L for loser, and
(13:18):
they would probably go, well, the executive power should not
be constrained. Look, Molly, I think what we're seeing here
these are the kind of things that really show us
who this administration is. And Stephen Miller by saying that
he wants to enforce a speech code in this country
and enforce ideological conformity, and to try to use this
(13:38):
tragedy to pennant on everyone who speaks against the president,
you know, it does show you also something that clip,
in particular, that Steven Miller's crazy. This guy has more
than a couple of bolts loose up top. I wonder
in some ways the president looks at Miller and says,
he's the guy who understands my base. I wonder in
some ways, just like with RFK, if we're going to
(13:59):
star reaching a point of diminishing returns with Steven Miller
soon because that stuff he's doing on TV is cuckoo Town.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Well again, I think it's also a question of like
is it more trouble than it's worth? And that goes
to Chicago. And I'd love to talk about Chicago because
Trump was all ready to go into Chicago last week
and he changed his mind.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Right.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
That is like when Trump says uncle about things that
is really important to.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
You, it means kil a lot when Trump. When Trump tacos,
it means a lot. And especially because he really had
spent a in the in the period before the Kirk incident,
he had spent about a week saying Chicago was weak
and dangerous and and the streets were running with blood
(14:49):
and all this other stuff, and you know, and and
people like Miller had been out talking to reporters telling
them We're going to go in, We're gonna we're gonna
take the city back. You know, if they if they
screw with us, we'll arrest them. And then he backed off,
and now we're hearing that he's going to send troops
to Memphis, which needs it, red state, blue city, red state,
and to Louisiana, which also red state.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Blue cities, but again needs it. Is like, is a
fake framing, right needs it?
Speaker 4 (15:19):
You know what?
Speaker 3 (15:20):
You know? You know, I stand corrected, I stand. You
could make a better case for it in those communities.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
But you still should not make any case that the
National Guard should be fighting crime because that's not their job.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
And also with the Unity Sty, they're picking them a trash.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Right, They're picking up trash, they're planting things, and by
the way, they are furious. Right. National Guard troops are
really mad because these people signed up to save drowning
children and fight wars, not to pick up trash and
intimidate their neighbors, which is not the purpose. But I
(15:56):
think it's worth just for another minute talking about why
Trump did not go into Chicago, because Pritzker has certainly
has something to do with it. He went into California
that was ruled illegal. And then I also wonder about
Brandon Johnson. You know, there was a really united front there.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Yeah, I think he I think he started to look
at Chicago, and there was a possibility there that the
Chicago government and courts and law enforcement would all say no,
not here, bro. And he has been losing in court
a lot, as you know. And I think that there
may have been part of this that said, we don't
(16:37):
want to have a precedent set because look, in Tennessee
and Louisiana, the state governments are going to say cool,
we love mister whatever, right. But been in Illinois, I
think there was a real chance he could have been
legally and professionally embarrassed by this in terms of the city,
might have been able to really, you know, put up
(16:58):
some meaningful obstacles legally and otherwise to this kind of behavior.
So I think the window in which Trump can use
the National Guard is closing or has closed. I don't
think it's an effective strategy. There. There is pushback inside
the military about it, quietly of ours, because they're all
over Trump.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
And it was emailed to a reporter at the Washington
Post that that this was terrible for them and that they.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Were a look a bad look and killing morale in
the Guard.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Yeah, which I mean, the thing that is so interesting
about this administration is like at so many points. So
they blew up this boat off the coast. It does
it certainly seems like the boat they blew up, they
don't have a definitive answer on what was in it.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Does they strike you that the boat they blew up
might not have really been dug.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Well, they were turning around, you saw that, right, they
got you know they You know, when people are in
the midst of surrendering, you're not supposed to kill them, right.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
That is the rule that is part of the Uniform
Code Military Justice and also in the Geneva Convention a
variety of other practices of war where someone says, hey, okay,
I give up. You're not supposed to just kill them.
And look, I think what you're seeing. Also, and there's
a little bit of a reporting about this, You've got
Rit Grennell and Marco Rubio fighting over control of who's
(18:22):
going to be the Venezuela person. It's an odd fight
and one that I will never see on pay per view,
I presume. But it really strikes me that one side
is leaking like a sieve, and it doesn't seem like
it's Rubio's side who was controlling this until that moment.
And I wonder what the value added is for the
Trump administration to declare war on Venezuela and to pretend
(18:48):
that they're stopping Trendiagua by blowing up shrimp boats.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yes, but then there's also the larger question of a
lot and I feel like so much news got drapped
out by the by his other stuff. But like Scott
Bessen had, yes, White House Fight Club, Scott Bessont has,
now he's going to beat up Pulty. I'll be very
(19:15):
curious to find out what happens with Bill PULTI because
this guy provided all of this evidence of stuff, and
now Lisa Cook it looks like is exonerated, right.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Or not just a little exonerated, like like completely she
said in the filings when she filed for the mortgage,
this is a vacation home. I'm not asking for a
homestead exemption. So I mean, I think she's got a
case against this guy.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
I don't parents actually did commit mortgage fraud.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Right, Yes?
Speaker 1 (19:48):
They correct so they So the irony here is incredibly rich.
Bill Pulty has made an enemy out of Scott Besson.
Scott Besson, who you know had his last scene focusing
with Elon Musk, meaning I just.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Want to see these guys, Like, I want to see
these guys fight it out.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
You know what's funny, They said they were going to
do mm A fighting at the White House. Remember that, Yeah,
why not just go all in? Well, maybe it's already happening.
Maybe the m m A fighting is.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
The along the way, right, or.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Maybe it's just the it's just Scott Best and beating
up different people from the administration.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
So it's a lot of thrills and spills the fans.
We'll see on here.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Is a white House Fight Club, White House fight Club. So,
and the first rule of White House Fight Club is
that Scott Besson does in Scott the apparently the White House.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
Flight Club is you leak it to Axios.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Right, Well, and the second rule of White House Fight
Club is if you're fighting with someone who has more
than seven jobs, you're probably gonna get fired. So like, yeah,
Marco has had fights with people and he's gotten their jobs.
Scott Bessen has had fights with people and he's gotten
their jobs. So I could see a world in which
this is the end of Bill PULTI yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
I mean, I don't think Bill Poulty is a guy
that Donald Trump wakes up in the morning and says,
my god, what will I do without him?
Speaker 1 (21:16):
But it is interesting, like that's just another guy, rich
guy who Trump was friends with. I mean, the barrier
to entry in this administration continues to be an Evolf right,
do I like you? Are? The vibes good? Right?
Speaker 3 (21:32):
He was a developer, I know them, I am one,
I love them all.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
I think the real question, though, is just the idea
that you have a guy who is just sort of
putting people in the cabinet. It is the one thing
that I think is different from Trump one point zero
is we're not seeing like the wall of firing, which
means all of these people are staying in the administration,
(21:57):
which means true. Talk me through that, because that seems
like I feel like Scott, like firing your your head,
your director of Defense might have been a better move
than keeping him in.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Well. I think Trump looked at the things that hurt
him politically in the first administration and determined he was
going to take that sort of Roy Cone approach from
now on. My people never do anything wrong. They're always right.
Screw you. If you criticize them, you're criticizing me. And
I also think there's something that's changed inside the administration
(22:35):
is he's willing to move people laterally, like Mike Webles
was was National Security Advisor until they added to Laura Lumer.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Well and didn't he ask, oh Laura Lumer okay, yeah, yeah, And.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Laura Lumer fired all of his staff and then Trump said, well, Marco,
you can be National Security Advisor. And and but Mike
Walls didn't get humiliated and he got the United Nations job.
You know, So they play it a little differently this
time because Trump doesn't want to be seen as losing
any battles, and so it's going to take a lot
to fire even sect drunk Pete Hegseth.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
But Pete Seth is still like adding people to signal chat.
I mean, maybe he's not actively doing it, but clearly
the problems have not gone away.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
No, and look, Pete Hexseth is is a singularly destructive
Secretary of Defense. And at no point should the folks
that are on the current Joint chiefs of Staff ever
wake up and think I'm serving this country effectively by
working for Petexseth. They will not be replaced by somebody
(23:43):
better or more responsible. They are. They're in a deep
hole with this guy because he is I mean, without
like being funny or exaggerating, petexth is mentally incapable of
doing this job. They will put somebody stupider in the job.
When Pterexath goes.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Rick, give us like a reason to not despair.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Donald Trump is a failing president. His poll numbers suck,
and they suck hard by the way they are bad.
Donald Trump's numbers are now in the high to mid thirties.
He is not a popular president. His policies are failing
almost across the board. Everything he does, almost every single
day is mediated by the fear of revelations on the
(24:32):
Epstein matter.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Right, that is true.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
He has been permanently branded as being a friend associate
running But however you want to describe it of an
infamous sex trafficker and an infamous pedophile. He's talking about
freeing the woman who ran the operations of that infamous
sex traffickers pedophile child trafficking ring. Yeah, nothing about this
(24:57):
is good for him. Donald Trump is also now an
international laughing stock, and he knows about the world knows it.
The tariff move has absolutely empowered China more than almost
any other country on Earth. The United States is a
laughing stock in foreign policy because no matter what Vladimir
Putin does, Trump will say, yes, sir, three bags full,
(25:18):
can I go wash your car? Yeah. So he's a
terrible president. His presidency is failed and failing. He is
doing awful things, but that ability to do these awful
things is now diminishing with a weaker economy. It's diminishing
with an administration that is obsessed with one issue, Jeffrey
(25:39):
Epstein behind the curtain. And as much as he can
do evil and do wrong, he's also eighty years old,
and he's not in good health, and the time is ticking,
and the actuarial tables are undefeated. And I don't think
that we should look at Trumps as powerful as he
would have been if he'd come back in twenty twenty one,
(26:01):
either a reelection or through January sixth. He's physically and
mentally office game. He's slipped.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Yeah, he seems to.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
It's going to catch up with all of us eventually.
But he is not the guy he was six months ago.
You can see it, you can feel it. And he
doesn't have the same instincts and the same ability and
the same power. Is the Republican Party still his bitch,
of course it is.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Ben Wickler is the former head of Wisconsin Democrats. Welcome
Ben to Fast Politics.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
Thanks got to be back, Bally.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
I wanted to have you on because I wanted to
talk about the moment Democrats are in and I've written
a lot about it. I've been thinking about a lot
about it. It's an insane moment in American life. So
talk us through what this looks like right now. And
I want you to talk us through like where the
Democrats are. First, talk us through Democrats more generally, and
(26:58):
then talk us through what easing to party party structure.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
Sure, so we have a split screen right now, and
the split screen is a kind of national conversation that's
totally dominated by Trump and his allies for two reasons.
One is that they own the means of distribution. They
own acts, the federal government, as browbeating national media, as
the usions the newspapers have been bought by people who
now have a huge financial interest in koutout and to
(27:25):
the Trump administration. And the other side is that Trump
himself and the whole ecosystem that people on the right
are extremely skilled at driving conversation constantly and so it's
both that the people who control the algorithms have an
interest in lifting out their narratives, but also the fact
that they're a lot better using those algorithms to get
(27:45):
the word out, and they're doing horrible, horrible things. And
so there's authoritary breakthrough national crisis moment, and the public
basically is only hearing from the right. They're not hearing
from Democrats, in part for structural reasons and in part
because the kind of across the board, and there's lots
of individual people that are getting this much better. But
Democrats need to get really good at figuring out how
(28:05):
to do things they can break through the news cycle.
And that means actually not just having the right words
that are not offensive to anyone, It means actually driving
actions so that Republicans are responding to what Democrats are
doing to fight back as opposed to Democrats girl clutching
at the latest horror. And the horrors are very real.
It's not wrong to condemn the horrors, but as long
as we're playing on their turf, we're losing. So that's
(28:26):
the first part. All of us feel that any what
has made attention even a bit feels of like how
could this all be happening and there's no like, you know,
nothing's breaking through, there's no pushback. Is mind rending. The
other side of the split screen is what is happening
on the ground. And I got an early taste of
this because I was in Wisconsin leading the Democratic Party
Wisconsin when Elon Musk came in and dropped what you know,
(28:47):
by my math, it's about fifty three million dollars on
the Supreme Court race the spring and then lost by
ten percentage points to Susan Crawford, who got more votes
not only than any Supreme Court justice ever in the state,
she got more votes than any Republican candidate for governor
in a November election in an even numbered you know,
midterm year has ever gotten That turns out was not atypical.
(29:08):
Democrats are overperforming over and over and over and over.
The average over performance is like sixteen percentage points this year,
which is like vastly higher than it was in twenty seventeen,
which was a banner year for Democrats kiking ass and
special elections. And that is driven by this just palpable
sense of urgency and rage and readiness to do anything
(29:30):
to save the country that millions of people feel on
the ground all over the place. If you ask run
for something, they're saying they're seeing vastly more people signing
up to run for local office than they've ever seen.
You can see this whole crop of people announcing campaigns
for the US Senate, which was supposed to be unwinnable,
and now in state after state after state, we have
these really compelling candidates that are communicating in new ways.
(29:52):
There's just a huge boiling energy. And in a sense,
these two things are going to crash into each other
in the next year and a half because on the
one hand, you have a Trump administration that's trying to
dismember the country, rig the system, completely lock in permanent control,
and on the other side, this energy that's coming up
from below, that is, you know, both through massive organizing
(30:12):
and mobilization, through ways of lawsuits, through like every non
election day tactic, but also through political mobilization, is trying
to counter this this lurch to the right. And I
think they're going to be booed by the fact that
Trump has been a total disaster for working people across
the country, especially the people who pay the least attention
to politics, who you know, were sort of changing the channel,
(30:32):
like she's trying something else, because that felt like what
was going on before wasn't working. If you look at
the public, they're also concluding that this is not working.
And so I think there's every likelihood that to the
extent we have a fair and freevy election, then it
could also be a wave election and a major change
election in twenty six. I think the same thing could
happened this fall. Pennsylvania statrib Court is incredibly important fight Virginia,
New Jersey. And what the Democratic Party is two things.
(30:56):
It is, on the one handed, kind of a morphous
blob of everyone who publicly identifies as the Democrat, every
elected official of the d next to their name, and
a lot of people eyes next to their names. It's
the commentators, it's all the different committees, the spaghetti sup
of different organizations, it's all the affiliated allied groups. It's
the all these different elements and this deep fundamental partnership
with the union movement. And then it's also an institution
(31:18):
with like the Democratic National Committee, with state committees in
each state. And this is a moment of reckoning for
the Democratic Party. And in those moments of reckoning. There's
always going to be a lot of conflict, Like that's
just how that's how generational change works, that's how shifting
shifting gears, how begging things through.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Works.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
If there wasn't, I think that would be really bad news.
And I would love to see, like I would love
to see the Democratic Party breaking through and demonstrating into
the country that we have an opposition party at this
moment and that it is fighting back at the same time,
Like there are these internal conversations that are happening all
over the place and often spelling out into the public.
And the most important thing is whether millions of people
are deciding themselves to become the heroes in this moment
(31:56):
and taking on the work, which could be recruiting candidate
or running for off as yourself, or it's donating it,
marching every weekend and talking to friends and neighbors, making
list of people you know who didn't vote in twenty
four Like, there's so many things that people can do.
So I'm in a hair and fire state about the
risk of the country to every person in the country.
It is basically locked in that millions and millions of
people are going to die because of this administration, because
(32:17):
of what they've done to vaccines, because of what they've
done to global health at fart AID, because of what
they've done to health policy in the United States. Like,
there's so much pain that has already begun for so
many people, and it's going to get so much worse,
and their threat to the basic function of democracy is
so bad. But I'm heartened by the level of and
the intensity of the response, even if it's you have
to look pretty hard to find it because it's not
being covered properly. That to me is really hardening.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Okay, you've made me feel so much better. I can't
decide is it because I like you so much anyway,
because I'm always like, give a supers wee of red hair,
so people with red hair are always good. But also
that you have a soothing present in a moment that
is not very soothing. Why are you not DNC chair
And shouldn't you be DNC chair? And make me feel
(33:00):
better that you're not DNC chair?
Speaker 4 (33:02):
Well, I ran for Dunca chair. I have a lot
of respect for Kim Martin. I've known for years. I
think in the race, I was reminded of something that
I say all the time, you know in Wisconsin, which
is that if you want to build the trust of
an electorate, you have to build relationships with them over
years and not just show up in the last couple
of months. And I very conscious that I jumped into
the race for DNC chair on December first of twenty
(33:23):
twenty four, two months out from election day. This is
not something that I'd dreamed of and Lake groundwork for.
And Ken has been leading the Association of the state
parties and was building relationships, serving on the DNC executive Committee.
Was making the case to people and they knew him.
And trust comes from knowing someone and seeing them in action,
So like elections are like that, and it's why I
think year round organizing is so absolutely essential. That's the
(33:46):
gospel that I was preaching. But Ken was making the
same argument and people knew him, so they heard it
from him in the same way, which kind of proves
the argument itself. I will find lots of other ways
to lead into the fight. And I also think that
in a sense, this is going to be a fight
where the DNC of everybody's fantasies wouldn't be able to
do this by itself because chance. It's going to be
this huge surge of a bazillion different folks stepping into
(34:09):
the breach in a bazillion different ways, and that there
are a lot of voters for whom the Democratic Party
will never be the right messenger. So even if the
Democratic Party said everything perfectly in every perfect place, and
that might improve the party's brand, imagine it was ten
percentage points better, it would still be really low. Right, Yeah,
that would be if we could spike up its approval
as a national party by an unprecedented degree, that still
(34:32):
would not be enough to get a majority. People like
great candidates of which we're seeing all these people coming
out of would work. I love like launch video TV
is my have replaced right now? These candidates are making
the case that they see what's wrong with a broken
system and they're going to challenge the system of role
and they're going to change it. That people, it is
not Democrats running on like restore the status quo. Democrats
(34:53):
are running on this isn't normal, but what's normal is
not okay, Like we need to actually make this whole
country work. And if the Democrat like correct party in
a sense isn't the right messenger for that, because it's
the oldest political party, I believe, the oldest continuous political
party in the world. As an entity, it doesn't embody
the idea of fighting for change in the minds of
the people who are most skeptical of it. So, you know,
there's just there's a lot of heroes that we need
(35:14):
at this moment, and some of them are in the
party and in the party structure, and a ton of
them are outside of it. And a lot of the
voters that we need are people who think that both
parties are fundamentally broken, corrupt and evil, and who nonetheless
we need to find, you know, who can communicate with
them and build enough trust to say it is worth
it casting a vote in this next election because everything's
on the line.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
You're seeing these huge wins and these specials. Example, as
there was a Virginia seat fifteen points over deliver on
that seat. When you look at Democrats in office, Robert
Garcian oversight is a really good example. They got the
birthday book, They got the birthday book out there. I
was shocked at how much that, you know, they handled
(35:57):
it in just extremely in a way where they were
able to break through one of the big problems is
Democrats can't break through. Harris had real problems breaking through
by an administration could not break through. Give me your
feeling on.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
This, Yeah, I mean I think that the chair or
breaking member borg on the Birthday book, it's a perfect
example of the right kind of move. I'm like working
in my house right now, and part of what you
do when you're trying to you prove your house is
you put positive air pressure into the house and see
where the air leaks. And I think of what Trump
is trying to do right now, as it's like you're
putting air pressure into the whole American political system to
(36:31):
see every crack in the system where you can then
like shove through authoritarian power. So like the federal government
doesn't control the police. Oh, but you can create your
own secret police force through the ICE funding and through
sending in truth with all these different things, I think
in a sense democrats need the same kind of approach
to think about how to break through, which is to say,
you have to try a ton of stuff. You have
to try doing things you haven't done before. You have
(36:53):
to try. Like the big thing is that message doesn't
mean anything if no one hears it, and right people
hear things tends to be through actions, not through words.
There need to be actual events, things need to happen
for it to become you know, of note, and that
is going to I'm sure form the conversation about the shutdown,
which is like why are we you know, funding the
(37:14):
This is destruction then the wholesale destruction of the systems
that have saved millions of American lives for the last
like half century, like the attacks on healthcare, all these
different things, Like yesual they have to have a fight
that draws attention, that shows whose side you're on, and
there are there are a bunch of people who have
figured out interesting ways to do that across the country.
(37:35):
That there should be more like learning from each other,
and they should be constant experimentation, like the worst has
already happened. So the risk of screwing up is much
lower now than it is if you think that, like
you're right on the right on the border being able
to to win something back. If Democrats try something and
nobody notices it, then it's like it never happens. You
(37:57):
might as well try enough things that eventually some of
the things are gonna get noticed. And I think that
that's you know, I think that the fight of a
redistrictigain actually retaliating with that is great. I think that
fighting new ways to community communicate is great. I think
upping production value is great. I think a lot about
the the January sixth Committee, the fact that they brought
in you know, serious news like TV producers to create
(38:19):
something that would actually be a storytelling vehicle and create
spectacle in moments. That to means the right idea you
should like simultaneously, you should try super high production value
stuff that is really well crafted is storytelling, and also
try a lot of totally spontaneous stuff that is gritty
and low production value, but that actually, you know, it
gives people the sense that they're there. There's a political
(38:40):
scientist who I think it was the discussible had.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
The Fedris Scotch peal with Lover from Harvard.
Speaker 4 (38:46):
Yes, the out party innovation the idea that basically the
political party that's out of power tends to innovate more.
And you know, if you remember two thousand and eight,
Democrats had figured out how to use the Internet first
and boom, like did they crush it? And then twenty
sixteen they were still using the vaccine technology they'd built
when they were out of power. It was literally built
on the Obamba campaign digital platform and it was trying
(39:07):
using the thing at that moment. Yeah, this is Democrats
are out of power now and they need to act
act like it. And that means like you know, cracking
things open and seeing what's inside and letting a million
flowers bloom. Algorithms are changing, like man, I mean AI
is a good example right now. Right Like there's there's
this explosion of new ways to create media and create content.
You can create songs that's only professional songs in a
(39:27):
couple of minutes. You can create video. There's constantly new things.
Democrats should try creating a bazillion different things all the
time and then also used totally not anythings. But like
it is, it is so much cheaper to be able
to try making videos like make a you know video
guide to the Epstein birthday book, like try and make
twenty different ones, come up with the contest who can
make the best one to get it up there, and
(39:49):
that stuff provokes conversation, So I like it's just the
time to play it. Stafe is so far in the
back and in the RuView mirror for me and like
this is a time for a walls car and spaghetti,
like some of it's going to stake.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
I just wrote this piece for Vanny Fair about democratic messengers,
who are the democratic messengers? And one of the things
that I was struck by was a staffer told me
that they thought that during this election, the twenty eight cycle,
god willing, that there would be moments where there may
(40:25):
be like actually going on something like Joe Rogan or
theovonn would actually be more meaningful because it breaks out
of the silo.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
Oh yeah, a bunch of Democrats have been on Joe
Rogan and the Theovan and it's great, Like the water's fine.
Your part of it is that long form podcasting ass
like a medium form the fath Politics pod.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
Yes, I think we're pretty much short form compared to
that to three hours.
Speaker 4 (40:52):
Yeah, anything bigger than cable news lends itself to actually
like finding rapport finding some of you agree and if
you have a conflict that tends to like go to
resolute as opposed to people like just get like cut,
getting their micscut when wandering off. And that's good. It's
good for Democrats to learn how to do that well.
And not be constantly like dodging like every possible landmin
or eggshell, having a bad news cycle and surviving it,
(41:13):
like is a very good way to discover that Actually
it's like it is more risky to be completely risk
averse than it is to create a larger volume and
a larger presence and the larger footprint. And that's the
general direction. Like you a world where every media out
that like at best only has a tiny fraction of
the country's attentionion, you have to just be in a
lot more places, a lot more at the time to
be able to break through, and then every so often,
(41:34):
like something actually catches the whole country. If you live
in fear of ever having a bad viral moment, then
you'll never have a good viral moment. And if you
ever have a good viral moment, no one will know
that you exist.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Let's talk about that, because I think one of the
things that really hurt by world was being so cautious.
Speaker 4 (41:52):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's pretty clear probably to
everyone in the universe at this point that the yeah,
the volume of communication that was coming out of the
illustration became very very small. And if you remember the beginning,
of the Harris campaign. It was this explosion like the
Brat summer that that moment, like all the Viepstakes with
all my presential candidates going on to TV all the time,
(42:13):
the kind of audition to spokespeople like that. People were
actually hearing from Democrats and hearing for them in ways
that felt new right, and they loved it. Yeah. I
was at the first I was the opening speaker at
the first rally in a battleground state of the presidential campaign.
Emily Harris came to this high school in Wisconsin and
it was just explosive, like people were ready to lift
(42:33):
the roof with their cheering and joy. And then that's
red and they recruited other people and you know, people
got involved in a level that was like just totally amazing.
And I think like those good feelings are good People
fundamentally remember, like at the deepest level, they remember what
political figures make them feel about themselves, how they make
them feel in their bodies. And to be able to
get to the point where you can then trigger any
(42:55):
kind of feeling, it involves vulnerability, which involves risk. It
just does They're communicating a lot and then being able
to find your groove and all the when you think
through like the kind of political turning point moments, they're
all things that involve emotion fundamentally, they go deeper than
arguments or ideas. And I think that's the in a way,
part of what we need to be looking for in
candidates for offices at every level and leaders who spokespeople
(43:17):
all this stuff is people who can actually make people
feel something, because that's how you can build, like memories
formed around emotions. The strongest memories are all built around emotions.
If you have an idea that you can attest to
that connects to the broader vision. The Democrats are for
the country, Like Ben, that's great, but the baseline has
to be what actually like touched you and made you
feel something and remember it.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
Yeah, I think that's right, Ben. Will you please come back?
Speaker 8 (43:37):
I'd be the leaded. Thanks for having me man, No,
Rick Wilson, Yes, Molly.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
How much of our lives have we spent talking about
Fox News?
Speaker 4 (43:51):
Too fucking much?
Speaker 1 (43:53):
Honestly, Brian kill Mead you may remember him from nothing,
that guy kill me? What did Brian Meed say this week?
Speaker 3 (44:01):
Brian killed me this week advocated for giving the homeless
lethal injections to get them.
Speaker 4 (44:06):
On the street.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
You know. I was told I heard, I heard this
week that the rhetoric in this country was too hot, yes,
and that we need to all back down and talk
nice to do each other. I did not have injecting
the homeless with lethal injections and killing them on my
Fox News bingo card this week. Maybe I should have,
Maybe I should have lowered the standard a little bit, but.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
Jesus lowly, I mean, I understand we're not supposed to
call them unhoused because it makes us seem unrelatable as liberals.
But I still think we shouldn't kill them, you.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
Know, whether you call them homeless or unhoused or whatever
view you have of them. Brian kill Me is now
advocating since about sixty percent of homeless folks are veterans,
he's advocating killing homeless veterans. Now he has supposedly walked
it back some like week walk back on it now.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
He I did apologize, yes, And by the way, for
a Fox News host to apologize is not nothing.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
No, it's not nothing. But here's the thing. This shows
you the hypocrisy of how the networks work. If that
had happened, as we saw from somebody getting fired on
MSNBC this week for not being sufficiently sensitive about Charlie Kirk.
If that had happened in another network of any kind
and any other outlet, he would have been taken off
the set. But a Fox, it's like haha, So look,
(45:26):
Ryan killed me. There's no rocket scientist to begin with.
And maybe he thought it was a funny joke or
thought he was working up to some sort of like
statement on it, but he basically was anyone to kill
the hoholmus. I don't know, call me crazy, but that
doesn't seem like lowering the temperature with Wilson.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
I'll see you next week.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
I'll see you next week.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best
minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds and Republican Representative Michael McCall won't seek
re election after eleven terms. We have such a great
show for you today. The Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson
joins us to discuss the rights escalating rhetoric of revenge
(00:24):
for Charlie Kirk's death. Ben will talk to the former
chair of the Wisconsin Democrats, Ben Wickler about how the
Democratic Party effectively builds to counter the GOP.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
But first the news, so BALI, there is a leadership
fight a bruin. It seems Chris van Holland is looking
to become the leader in the Senate. Hakim Jefferies has
some choice words for him, but I think Chris is
dead on here and as the type of fighter I
think we could use personally.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Chris van Holland had this really good point about Mom
Dami and he said, yet many members of the Senate
and the House representing New York have stayed on the sidelines.
And he's right. He said that that kind of spineless
politics is what people are sick of. They need to
get behind him and get behind him.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
Now that's about as boys words as Dems do. That's
like a political smack in the face to start a
fight whatever sek for.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Old white guys like this is as rough as they get.
And look, Holland is right. Mondanni won the nomination. He
won it by as it's not like there's a primary
going on. And I think what's really interesting about this
is it's not like Mondani is some unpopular candidate. He's
a really popular candidate. So then you have to ask
(01:40):
yourself think about this, Why are they not endorsing someone
who won their districts. These are politicians. They tend to
do things that are politically expedient, So what is the
move here? Why are they not doing it? And when
you think about it that way, the reasons they're not
doing it are pretty damn it.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
I think Jeffries has long been accused by the left
of being hostile towards them in a way that they
can barely make sense of.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
I think the most important thing about Leader Jeffries is
that he is really bad at the Internet. And so
you may not love Gavin Newsom ideologically, but the guy
is good at the Internet.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
You can be Bernie Sanders would be nine billion years
old to be good at.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
The internets, AOC good at the Internet. There are a
lot of Democrats, Chris Murphy. Not anyone's idea of a
crazy leftist good at the internet. You know who's not
good at the internet. Leader Jeffries, Leader Jeffries. This is
what poor Justin said. Leader Jeffries will have more to
say about the general election, well advanced of November fourth,
(02:44):
by the way, in case for those keeping Scurt home,
we are at September fourteenth, so he really only has
six weeks if he's going to do it. Meanwhile, he said,
confuse New Yorkers are asking themselves a question Chris van who. No,
we're not. We know exactly who Chris van Holland is,
and making fun of Chris van Holland does not make
(03:06):
you then seem like you have the situation in hand.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah, okay, Well, speaking of situations, we're monitoring as the
joke quakes to go. The mayor of Memphis, Paul Jung,
says he's certainly not happy about Trump's National Guard deployment.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Nobody should be happy, right, I think we all need
to pause for a minute. The framing is a lie.
He's not sending the National Guard into fight crime. The
National Guard does not fight crime. The police fight crime.
The National Guard get there and they end up having
to do terrible jobs that they're not meant to be doing,
picking up trash, intimidating people. So the whole you know,
(03:43):
it's like reject Trump's framing. He didn't go to war
with universities because he cared about anti semitism. He went
to war with universities because they saw from Victor Orbond
that if you want to enact and authoritarian crackdowns, you
have to start with the universities. That's what this was.
(04:04):
So when you look at this, this is not about crime,
This is about deployment. This is about spectacle. And also,
by the way, this is about distracting from the tariff
fiasco and inflation. Trump has decided that going into Memphis
is better because Tennessee is a red state, and that
he'll be greeted as a liberator, you know, tends to be.
(04:25):
We are not greeted as liberators when our military role
into different cities, especially ones that have their own protocol
for protecting themselves.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
I thought part of trump Ism was that we learned
the lessons of Iraqis and now what he always claims,
but he didn't learn that they'll greet us as liberators.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Thing.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Listen, man, he's brought peace. He's brought peace everywhere. He's
brought peace to India and Pakistan, he's brought peace to
the Middle East.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
This is why he's going to get the.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Yeah, he's spent forty five piece deals in five days.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
That's what I've been told.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Do you remember when we were ninety trade deals in
ninety days?
Speaker 2 (05:02):
You know that seems to have stucked my mind because
there's a shit from every single day to forget about
all the lives. They tell, well, we never.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Got the deals. There were no deals, no deals, no deals,
just days.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
Well.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Another myth of this administration is the Party of free speech.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Yes, they love free speech except sometimes do you.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Know what the Party of free speech is talk about doing?
A new bill would allow Marco Ruby of a strip
US citizens' passports over political speech.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
So we talked about this with Rip and my grandfather did,
in fact have his passport strip. The Supreme Court has
ruled against this. Now trumperol doesn't mind doing illegal stuff.
That's like kind of the brand a legal stuff. But
I do think that the fact that this crew has
decided that they're going to go after passports and maybe
they pass it, it's unconstitutional. It's against the Constitution. I mean,
(05:54):
I don't know, well the Supreme Court like rollover probably,
but I think we're seeing here that this is we're
just in water world here where they just make up stuff.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
So I find this really disturbing. This is balls onto
that banner of the cruelty is the point, and also
getting rich people stupid tax cuts that barely hurt them.
The Trump administration is canceling grants that support deaf, blind
students and special education teachers.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
This is cute.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
This is how we got here, right like, this is fraud, waste,
and abuse. I was told that the richest man in
the world, he's not the richest anymore, but the second
richest man in the world was going to cut out fraud, waste,
and abuse. What he meant was just getting rid of
money for teachers to teach disabled children. Wisconsin had planned
(06:42):
to work with these funds to include direct support of
deaf blind learners and their families in an effort to
recruit and retain new special education, teachers. It's one thing.
They cut all this international foreign aid, the kind of
stuff that you know, millions of people are going to
die from this, but this is just stuff that is like,
we have this ballooning debt, we have billionaires not paying taxes.
(07:05):
Like you guys can pay for deaf blind kids to
get teachers. I promise you can afford it. Rick Wilson
is the founder of the Lincoln Project and the host
of the Enemy's List. Hello, Rick Wilson, Mollie john Fast,
Great to.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Be back with you.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
You had a nice littification we did.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
We went to England and Renee and I spent a
few days in the Cotswalds and a few days in London.
When I was over there, their number one story in
the news for like four or five days was that
the deputy Prime Minister had not paid enough property taxes.
It wasn't did Trump nuke the moon? It was there
something cuckoo.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
There's still time. While you were away, Stephen Miller went
on Fox News and he said some stuff. We're gonna
We're gonna cut to the veil.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 5 (07:56):
There is a dynastic terrorism movement in this country, when
you see these organized docs and campaigns where the left
calls people enemies of the republic, calls them fascists, says
they're Nazis, says they're evil, says they have to be removed,
and then prince their addresses.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
What do you think they're.
Speaker 4 (08:13):
Trying to do.
Speaker 5 (08:14):
They are trying to inspire someone to murder them. That
is their objective, that is their intent.
Speaker 6 (08:21):
And when you see online Sean, as we've seen for
the last few days, tape after tape after tape of
federal workers, Beeracrez staffers and the Pentagon educators, professors, healthcare workers,
nurser nurses celebrating the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Speaker 5 (08:41):
These are radicalized people. There is a domestic terrorism movement
in this country.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
I just want to say, you think that the cardigan
is going to make him seem a little more mallow,
but it really it's I guess it's a fleece like
you want to like a guy in a gray fleece.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
Look, I mean it is the It is the sort
of modern day business bro uniform you want to quarner
zip or a fleece. You know, it makes you it
seem like you're casual and yet still smart and sharp
and approachable and yet not necessarily rabid, bouncing off the
fucking walls. And you know, Stephen Miller, there's a real
(09:21):
tell in all of this. Steven Miller immediately goes to it. Oh,
they call us Nazis, they call us fascists. Well, listen, Stephen,
if the jack boot fits, wear it, well, I don't
think that.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
I think that the I think the name calling whatever right.
Nobody has ever been convinced of anything by calling someone
a name. The question I have is where are these nurses,
where are these federal employees celebrating this brutal killing, because
(09:53):
I have not seen that. Now. Maybe I'm siloed up,
but I'm not seen for fer.
Speaker 3 (09:59):
Did see a weeks ago Mike Lee and JD. Vance
and a whole bunch of other Republicans laughing and joking
about the murder of the former House speaker in Minnesota.
You know what I did see when Paul Pelosi was
beaten with a hammer by a crazy guy who was
inspired by MAGA. I saw Don Junior making jokes about
it online, thought it was hilarious, And frankly, we saw
(10:22):
Charlie Kirk hoping that that guy would get bailed out
at the time.
Speaker 1 (10:25):
So let's just pull back because Stephen Miller is basically
Trump's chief of staff. So this is not like some
guy on the internet saying this. This is the President's
chief of staff.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Not Molly. It's important to realize not only that Stephen
Miller is the effective head of the both the Justice
Department and the Department of Homeland Security.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Right she is.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
It controls those things top to bottom.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
And one of the things that I think has been
really interesting about this week that we've seen a lot
of is that we've seen people from Trump World and
how they're like, I'm thinking about cash Battel. So Cash
Battel was so worried about the way that this was
playing out in the media, social mainstream, and we have
(11:07):
now Steven Miller going on television, going on Fox News saying,
you know that he's going to sort of we ideal
I mean the goal what it sounds like to me
here and I certainly could be wrong, but it sounds
like ideological culling of the federal government.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Look, I think you have to expand past that. You
have people like Representative Clay Higgins, you have people across
the across the MAGA verse now saying that anybody who
doesn't sufficiently praise Charlie Kirk is going to be targeted.
And I think what you see Miller doing is taking
(11:43):
a tragic moment, a horrible moment of violence, and now
trying to weaponize it into a further expansion of the
power of the executive branch.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
When you have just doing they executive there, Yes we.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
Need the state Department now saying that they want to
be able to cancel Americans passports if they say the
wrong things.
Speaker 7 (12:06):
This is an increasingly censor dark visionship. Yeah, well, such
a sentiship. It's the use of the power of the
state state to harm the political opponents of the president.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
It's funny because my grandfather after he got out of
jail caring mccarthier, they actually did take away his passport
and that's why the family went to Mexico after he
got a jail, because you could go to Mexico without
a passport. And they actually went to a very conservative
Supreme court and were given their passports back because the
(12:39):
court said you can't take people's passports away for political reasons. Now,
that was seventy five years ago. Now, our court is
significantly more conservative than it was I mean seventy five
years ago. I mean, I feel like this court. You
give them that question, they might decide differently.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
There was an article in The Times on Sunday about
the number of times the Supreme Court agrees with the
administration and the current Supreme Court. No Supreme court in
history has ever agreed with an administration more frequently than
this one does. So, you know, Donald Trump could say
my opponents have to have to be branded in the
middle of their forehead with an L for loser, and
(13:18):
they would probably go, well, the executive power should not
be constrained. Look, Molly, I think what we're seeing here
these are the kind of things that really show us
who this administration is. And Stephen Miller by saying that
he wants to enforce a speech code in this country
and enforce ideological conformity, and to try to use this
(13:38):
tragedy to pennant on everyone who speaks against the president,
you know, it does show you also something that clip,
in particular, that Steven Miller's crazy. This guy has more
than a couple of bolts loose up top. I wonder
in some ways the president looks at Miller and says,
he's the guy who understands my base. I wonder in
some ways, just like with RFK, if we're going to
(13:59):
star reaching a point of diminishing returns with Steven Miller
soon because that stuff he's doing on TV is cuckoo Town.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Well again, I think it's also a question of like
is it more trouble than it's worth? And that goes
to Chicago. And I'd love to talk about Chicago because
Trump was all ready to go into Chicago last week
and he changed his mind.
Speaker 3 (14:22):
Right.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
That is like when Trump says uncle about things that
is really important to.
Speaker 3 (14:28):
You, it means kil a lot when Trump. When Trump tacos,
it means a lot. And especially because he really had
spent a in the in the period before the Kirk incident,
he had spent about a week saying Chicago was weak
and dangerous and and the streets were running with blood
(14:49):
and all this other stuff, and you know, and and
people like Miller had been out talking to reporters telling
them We're going to go in, We're gonna we're gonna
take the city back. You know, if they if they
screw with us, we'll arrest them. And then he backed off,
and now we're hearing that he's going to send troops
to Memphis, which needs it, red state, blue city, red state,
and to Louisiana, which also red state.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Blue cities, but again needs it. Is like, is a
fake framing, right needs it?
Speaker 4 (15:19):
You know what?
Speaker 3 (15:20):
You know? You know, I stand corrected, I stand. You
could make a better case for it in those communities.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
But you still should not make any case that the
National Guard should be fighting crime because that's not their job.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
And also with the Unity Sty, they're picking them a trash.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Right, They're picking up trash, they're planting things, and by
the way, they are furious. Right. National Guard troops are
really mad because these people signed up to save drowning
children and fight wars, not to pick up trash and
intimidate their neighbors, which is not the purpose. But I
(15:56):
think it's worth just for another minute talking about why
Trump did not go into Chicago, because Pritzker has certainly
has something to do with it. He went into California
that was ruled illegal. And then I also wonder about
Brandon Johnson. You know, there was a really united front there.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Yeah, I think he I think he started to look
at Chicago, and there was a possibility there that the
Chicago government and courts and law enforcement would all say no,
not here, bro. And he has been losing in court
a lot, as you know. And I think that there
may have been part of this that said, we don't
(16:37):
want to have a precedent set because look, in Tennessee
and Louisiana, the state governments are going to say cool,
we love mister whatever, right. But been in Illinois, I
think there was a real chance he could have been
legally and professionally embarrassed by this in terms of the city,
might have been able to really, you know, put up
(16:58):
some meaningful obstacles legally and otherwise to this kind of behavior.
So I think the window in which Trump can use
the National Guard is closing or has closed. I don't
think it's an effective strategy. There. There is pushback inside
the military about it, quietly of ours, because they're all
over Trump.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
And it was emailed to a reporter at the Washington
Post that that this was terrible for them and that they.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Were a look a bad look and killing morale in
the Guard.
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Yeah, which I mean, the thing that is so interesting
about this administration is like at so many points. So
they blew up this boat off the coast. It does
it certainly seems like the boat they blew up, they
don't have a definitive answer on what was in it.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Does they strike you that the boat they blew up
might not have really been dug.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Well, they were turning around, you saw that, right, they
got you know they You know, when people are in
the midst of surrendering, you're not supposed to kill them, right.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
That is the rule that is part of the Uniform
Code Military Justice and also in the Geneva Convention a
variety of other practices of war where someone says, hey, okay,
I give up. You're not supposed to just kill them.
And look, I think what you're seeing. Also, and there's
a little bit of a reporting about this, You've got
Rit Grennell and Marco Rubio fighting over control of who's
(18:22):
going to be the Venezuela person. It's an odd fight
and one that I will never see on pay per view,
I presume. But it really strikes me that one side
is leaking like a sieve, and it doesn't seem like
it's Rubio's side who was controlling this until that moment.
And I wonder what the value added is for the
Trump administration to declare war on Venezuela and to pretend
(18:48):
that they're stopping Trendiagua by blowing up shrimp boats.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yes, but then there's also the larger question of a
lot and I feel like so much news got drapped
out by the by his other stuff. But like Scott
Bessen had, yes, White House Fight Club, Scott Bessont has,
now he's going to beat up Pulty. I'll be very
(19:15):
curious to find out what happens with Bill PULTI because
this guy provided all of this evidence of stuff, and
now Lisa Cook it looks like is exonerated, right.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Or not just a little exonerated, like like completely she
said in the filings when she filed for the mortgage,
this is a vacation home. I'm not asking for a
homestead exemption. So I mean, I think she's got a
case against this guy.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
I don't parents actually did commit mortgage fraud.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
Right, Yes?
Speaker 1 (19:48):
They correct so they So the irony here is incredibly rich.
Bill Pulty has made an enemy out of Scott Besson.
Scott Besson, who you know had his last scene focusing
with Elon Musk, meaning I just.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Want to see these guys, Like, I want to see
these guys fight it out.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
You know what's funny, They said they were going to
do mm A fighting at the White House. Remember that, Yeah,
why not just go all in? Well, maybe it's already happening.
Maybe the m m A fighting is.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
The along the way, right, or.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
Maybe it's just the it's just Scott Best and beating
up different people from the administration.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
So it's a lot of thrills and spills the fans.
We'll see on here.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Is a white House Fight Club, White House fight Club. So,
and the first rule of White House Fight Club is
that Scott Besson does in Scott the apparently the White House.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
Flight Club is you leak it to Axios.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Right, Well, and the second rule of White House Fight
Club is if you're fighting with someone who has more
than seven jobs, you're probably gonna get fired. So like, yeah,
Marco has had fights with people and he's gotten their jobs.
Scott Bessen has had fights with people and he's gotten
their jobs. So I could see a world in which
this is the end of Bill PULTI yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
I mean, I don't think Bill Poulty is a guy
that Donald Trump wakes up in the morning and says,
my god, what will I do without him?
Speaker 1 (21:16):
But it is interesting, like that's just another guy, rich
guy who Trump was friends with. I mean, the barrier
to entry in this administration continues to be an Evolf right,
do I like you? Are? The vibes good? Right?
Speaker 3 (21:32):
He was a developer, I know them, I am one,
I love them all.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
I think the real question, though, is just the idea
that you have a guy who is just sort of
putting people in the cabinet. It is the one thing
that I think is different from Trump one point zero
is we're not seeing like the wall of firing, which
means all of these people are staying in the administration,
(21:57):
which means true. Talk me through that, because that seems
like I feel like Scott, like firing your your head,
your director of Defense might have been a better move
than keeping him in.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Well. I think Trump looked at the things that hurt
him politically in the first administration and determined he was
going to take that sort of Roy Cone approach from
now on. My people never do anything wrong. They're always right.
Screw you. If you criticize them, you're criticizing me. And
I also think there's something that's changed inside the administration
(22:35):
is he's willing to move people laterally, like Mike Webles
was was National Security Advisor until they added to Laura Lumer.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Well and didn't he ask, oh Laura Lumer okay, yeah, yeah, And.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
Laura Lumer fired all of his staff and then Trump said, well, Marco,
you can be National Security Advisor. And and but Mike
Walls didn't get humiliated and he got the United Nations job.
You know, So they play it a little differently this
time because Trump doesn't want to be seen as losing
any battles, and so it's going to take a lot
to fire even sect drunk Pete Hegseth.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
But Pete Seth is still like adding people to signal chat.
I mean, maybe he's not actively doing it, but clearly
the problems have not gone away.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
No, and look, Pete Hexseth is is a singularly destructive
Secretary of Defense. And at no point should the folks
that are on the current Joint chiefs of Staff ever
wake up and think I'm serving this country effectively by
working for Petexseth. They will not be replaced by somebody
(23:43):
better or more responsible. They are. They're in a deep
hole with this guy because he is I mean, without
like being funny or exaggerating, petexth is mentally incapable of
doing this job. They will put somebody stupider in the job.
When Pterexath goes.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
Rick, give us like a reason to not despair.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Donald Trump is a failing president. His poll numbers suck,
and they suck hard by the way they are bad.
Donald Trump's numbers are now in the high to mid thirties.
He is not a popular president. His policies are failing
almost across the board. Everything he does, almost every single
day is mediated by the fear of revelations on the
(24:32):
Epstein matter.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Right, that is true.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
He has been permanently branded as being a friend associate
running But however you want to describe it of an
infamous sex trafficker and an infamous pedophile. He's talking about
freeing the woman who ran the operations of that infamous
sex traffickers pedophile child trafficking ring. Yeah, nothing about this
(24:57):
is good for him. Donald Trump is also now an
international laughing stock, and he knows about the world knows it.
The tariff move has absolutely empowered China more than almost
any other country on Earth. The United States is a
laughing stock in foreign policy because no matter what Vladimir
Putin does, Trump will say, yes, sir, three bags full,
(25:18):
can I go wash your car? Yeah. So he's a
terrible president. His presidency is failed and failing. He is
doing awful things, but that ability to do these awful
things is now diminishing with a weaker economy. It's diminishing
with an administration that is obsessed with one issue, Jeffrey
(25:39):
Epstein behind the curtain. And as much as he can
do evil and do wrong, he's also eighty years old,
and he's not in good health, and the time is ticking,
and the actuarial tables are undefeated. And I don't think
that we should look at Trumps as powerful as he
would have been if he'd come back in twenty twenty one,
(26:01):
either a reelection or through January sixth. He's physically and
mentally office game. He's slipped.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
Yeah, he seems to.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
It's going to catch up with all of us eventually.
But he is not the guy he was six months ago.
You can see it, you can feel it. And he
doesn't have the same instincts and the same ability and
the same power. Is the Republican Party still his bitch,
of course it is.
Speaker 1 (26:28):
Ben Wickler is the former head of Wisconsin Democrats. Welcome
Ben to Fast Politics.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
Thanks got to be back, Bally.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
I wanted to have you on because I wanted to
talk about the moment Democrats are in and I've written
a lot about it. I've been thinking about a lot
about it. It's an insane moment in American life. So
talk us through what this looks like right now. And
I want you to talk us through like where the
Democrats are. First, talk us through Democrats more generally, and
(26:58):
then talk us through what easing to party party structure.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
Sure, so we have a split screen right now, and
the split screen is a kind of national conversation that's
totally dominated by Trump and his allies for two reasons.
One is that they own the means of distribution. They
own acts, the federal government, as browbeating national media, as
the usions the newspapers have been bought by people who
now have a huge financial interest in koutout and to
(27:25):
the Trump administration. And the other side is that Trump
himself and the whole ecosystem that people on the right
are extremely skilled at driving conversation constantly and so it's
both that the people who control the algorithms have an
interest in lifting out their narratives, but also the fact
that they're a lot better using those algorithms to get
(27:45):
the word out, and they're doing horrible, horrible things. And
so there's authoritary breakthrough national crisis moment, and the public
basically is only hearing from the right. They're not hearing
from Democrats, in part for structural reasons and in part
because the kind of across the board, and there's lots
of individual people that are getting this much better. But
Democrats need to get really good at figuring out how
(28:05):
to do things they can break through the news cycle.
And that means actually not just having the right words
that are not offensive to anyone, It means actually driving
actions so that Republicans are responding to what Democrats are
doing to fight back as opposed to Democrats girl clutching
at the latest horror. And the horrors are very real.
It's not wrong to condemn the horrors, but as long
as we're playing on their turf, we're losing. So that's
(28:26):
the first part. All of us feel that any what
has made attention even a bit feels of like how
could this all be happening and there's no like, you know,
nothing's breaking through, there's no pushback. Is mind rending. The
other side of the split screen is what is happening
on the ground. And I got an early taste of
this because I was in Wisconsin leading the Democratic Party
Wisconsin when Elon Musk came in and dropped what you know,
(28:47):
by my math, it's about fifty three million dollars on
the Supreme Court race the spring and then lost by
ten percentage points to Susan Crawford, who got more votes
not only than any Supreme Court justice ever in the state,
she got more votes than any Republican candidate for governor
in a November election in an even numbered you know,
midterm year has ever gotten That turns out was not atypical.
(29:08):
Democrats are overperforming over and over and over and over.
The average over performance is like sixteen percentage points this year,
which is like vastly higher than it was in twenty seventeen,
which was a banner year for Democrats kiking ass and
special elections. And that is driven by this just palpable
sense of urgency and rage and readiness to do anything
(29:30):
to save the country that millions of people feel on
the ground all over the place. If you ask run
for something, they're saying they're seeing vastly more people signing
up to run for local office than they've ever seen.
You can see this whole crop of people announcing campaigns
for the US Senate, which was supposed to be unwinnable,
and now in state after state after state, we have
these really compelling candidates that are communicating in new ways.
(29:52):
There's just a huge boiling energy. And in a sense,
these two things are going to crash into each other
in the next year and a half because on the
one hand, you have a Trump administration that's trying to
dismember the country, rig the system, completely lock in permanent control,
and on the other side, this energy that's coming up
from below, that is, you know, both through massive organizing
(30:12):
and mobilization, through ways of lawsuits, through like every non
election day tactic, but also through political mobilization, is trying
to counter this this lurch to the right. And I
think they're going to be booed by the fact that
Trump has been a total disaster for working people across
the country, especially the people who pay the least attention
to politics, who you know, were sort of changing the channel,
(30:32):
like she's trying something else, because that felt like what
was going on before wasn't working. If you look at
the public, they're also concluding that this is not working.
And so I think there's every likelihood that to the
extent we have a fair and freevy election, then it
could also be a wave election and a major change
election in twenty six. I think the same thing could
happened this fall. Pennsylvania statrib Court is incredibly important fight Virginia,
New Jersey. And what the Democratic Party is two things.
(30:56):
It is, on the one handed, kind of a morphous
blob of everyone who publicly identifies as the Democrat, every
elected official of the d next to their name, and
a lot of people eyes next to their names. It's
the commentators, it's all the different committees, the spaghetti sup
of different organizations, it's all the affiliated allied groups. It's
the all these different elements and this deep fundamental partnership
with the union movement. And then it's also an institution
(31:18):
with like the Democratic National Committee, with state committees in
each state. And this is a moment of reckoning for
the Democratic Party. And in those moments of reckoning. There's
always going to be a lot of conflict, Like that's
just how that's how generational change works, that's how shifting
shifting gears, how begging things through.
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Works.
Speaker 4 (31:35):
If there wasn't, I think that would be really bad news.
And I would love to see, like I would love
to see the Democratic Party breaking through and demonstrating into
the country that we have an opposition party at this
moment and that it is fighting back at the same time,
Like there are these internal conversations that are happening all
over the place and often spelling out into the public.
And the most important thing is whether millions of people
are deciding themselves to become the heroes in this moment
(31:56):
and taking on the work, which could be recruiting candidate
or running for off as yourself, or it's donating it,
marching every weekend and talking to friends and neighbors, making
list of people you know who didn't vote in twenty
four Like, there's so many things that people can do.
So I'm in a hair and fire state about the
risk of the country to every person in the country.
It is basically locked in that millions and millions of
people are going to die because of this administration, because
(32:17):
of what they've done to vaccines, because of what they've
done to global health at fart AID, because of what
they've done to health policy in the United States. Like,
there's so much pain that has already begun for so
many people, and it's going to get so much worse,
and their threat to the basic function of democracy is
so bad. But I'm heartened by the level of and
the intensity of the response, even if it's you have
to look pretty hard to find it because it's not
being covered properly. That to me is really hardening.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Okay, you've made me feel so much better. I can't
decide is it because I like you so much anyway,
because I'm always like, give a supers wee of red hair,
so people with red hair are always good. But also
that you have a soothing present in a moment that
is not very soothing. Why are you not DNC chair
And shouldn't you be DNC chair? And make me feel
(33:00):
better that you're not DNC chair?
Speaker 4 (33:02):
Well, I ran for Dunca chair. I have a lot
of respect for Kim Martin. I've known for years. I
think in the race, I was reminded of something that
I say all the time, you know in Wisconsin, which
is that if you want to build the trust of
an electorate, you have to build relationships with them over
years and not just show up in the last couple
of months. And I very conscious that I jumped into
the race for DNC chair on December first of twenty
(33:23):
twenty four, two months out from election day. This is
not something that I'd dreamed of and Lake groundwork for.
And Ken has been leading the Association of the state
parties and was building relationships, serving on the DNC executive Committee.
Was making the case to people and they knew him.
And trust comes from knowing someone and seeing them in action,
So like elections are like that, and it's why I
think year round organizing is so absolutely essential. That's the
(33:46):
gospel that I was preaching. But Ken was making the
same argument and people knew him, so they heard it
from him in the same way, which kind of proves
the argument itself. I will find lots of other ways
to lead into the fight. And I also think that
in a sense, this is going to be a fight
where the DNC of everybody's fantasies wouldn't be able to
do this by itself because chance. It's going to be
this huge surge of a bazillion different folks stepping into
(34:09):
the breach in a bazillion different ways, and that there
are a lot of voters for whom the Democratic Party
will never be the right messenger. So even if the
Democratic Party said everything perfectly in every perfect place, and
that might improve the party's brand, imagine it was ten
percentage points better, it would still be really low. Right, Yeah,
that would be if we could spike up its approval
as a national party by an unprecedented degree, that still
(34:32):
would not be enough to get a majority. People like
great candidates of which we're seeing all these people coming
out of would work. I love like launch video TV
is my have replaced right now? These candidates are making
the case that they see what's wrong with a broken
system and they're going to challenge the system of role
and they're going to change it. That people, it is
not Democrats running on like restore the status quo. Democrats
(34:53):
are running on this isn't normal, but what's normal is
not okay, Like we need to actually make this whole
country work. And if the Democrat like correct party in
a sense isn't the right messenger for that, because it's
the oldest political party, I believe, the oldest continuous political
party in the world. As an entity, it doesn't embody
the idea of fighting for change in the minds of
the people who are most skeptical of it. So, you know,
there's just there's a lot of heroes that we need
(35:14):
at this moment, and some of them are in the
party and in the party structure, and a ton of
them are outside of it. And a lot of the
voters that we need are people who think that both
parties are fundamentally broken, corrupt and evil, and who nonetheless
we need to find, you know, who can communicate with
them and build enough trust to say it is worth
it casting a vote in this next election because everything's
on the line.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
You're seeing these huge wins and these specials. Example, as
there was a Virginia seat fifteen points over deliver on
that seat. When you look at Democrats in office, Robert
Garcian oversight is a really good example. They got the
birthday book, They got the birthday book out there. I
was shocked at how much that, you know, they handled
(35:57):
it in just extremely in a way where they were
able to break through one of the big problems is
Democrats can't break through. Harris had real problems breaking through
by an administration could not break through. Give me your
feeling on.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
This, Yeah, I mean I think that the chair or
breaking member borg on the Birthday book, it's a perfect
example of the right kind of move. I'm like working
in my house right now, and part of what you
do when you're trying to you prove your house is
you put positive air pressure into the house and see
where the air leaks. And I think of what Trump
is trying to do right now, as it's like you're
putting air pressure into the whole American political system to
(36:31):
see every crack in the system where you can then
like shove through authoritarian power. So like the federal government
doesn't control the police. Oh, but you can create your
own secret police force through the ICE funding and through
sending in truth with all these different things, I think
in a sense democrats need the same kind of approach
to think about how to break through, which is to say,
you have to try a ton of stuff. You have
to try doing things you haven't done before. You have
(36:53):
to try. Like the big thing is that message doesn't
mean anything if no one hears it, and right people
hear things tends to be through actions, not through words.
There need to be actual events, things need to happen
for it to become you know, of note, and that
is going to I'm sure form the conversation about the shutdown,
which is like why are we you know, funding the
(37:14):
This is destruction then the wholesale destruction of the systems
that have saved millions of American lives for the last
like half century, like the attacks on healthcare, all these
different things, Like yesual they have to have a fight
that draws attention, that shows whose side you're on, and
there are there are a bunch of people who have
figured out interesting ways to do that across the country.
(37:35):
That there should be more like learning from each other,
and they should be constant experimentation, like the worst has
already happened. So the risk of screwing up is much
lower now than it is if you think that, like
you're right on the right on the border being able
to to win something back. If Democrats try something and
nobody notices it, then it's like it never happens. You
(37:57):
might as well try enough things that eventually some of
the things are gonna get noticed. And I think that
that's you know, I think that the fight of a
redistrictigain actually retaliating with that is great. I think that
fighting new ways to community communicate is great. I think
upping production value is great. I think a lot about
the the January sixth Committee, the fact that they brought
in you know, serious news like TV producers to create
(38:19):
something that would actually be a storytelling vehicle and create
spectacle in moments. That to means the right idea you
should like simultaneously, you should try super high production value
stuff that is really well crafted is storytelling, and also
try a lot of totally spontaneous stuff that is gritty
and low production value, but that actually, you know, it
gives people the sense that they're there. There's a political
(38:40):
scientist who I think it was the discussible had.
Speaker 1 (38:42):
The Fedris Scotch peal with Lover from Harvard.
Speaker 4 (38:46):
Yes, the out party innovation the idea that basically the
political party that's out of power tends to innovate more.
And you know, if you remember two thousand and eight,
Democrats had figured out how to use the Internet first
and boom, like did they crush it? And then twenty
sixteen they were still using the vaccine technology they'd built
when they were out of power. It was literally built
on the Obamba campaign digital platform and it was trying
(39:07):
using the thing at that moment. Yeah, this is Democrats
are out of power now and they need to act
act like it. And that means like you know, cracking
things open and seeing what's inside and letting a million
flowers bloom. Algorithms are changing, like man, I mean AI
is a good example right now. Right Like there's there's
this explosion of new ways to create media and create content.
You can create songs that's only professional songs in a
(39:27):
couple of minutes. You can create video. There's constantly new things.
Democrats should try creating a bazillion different things all the
time and then also used totally not anythings. But like
it is, it is so much cheaper to be able
to try making videos like make a you know video
guide to the Epstein birthday book, like try and make
twenty different ones, come up with the contest who can
make the best one to get it up there, and
(39:49):
that stuff provokes conversation, So I like it's just the
time to play it. Stafe is so far in the
back and in the RuView mirror for me and like
this is a time for a walls car and spaghetti,
like some of it's going to stake.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
I just wrote this piece for Vanny Fair about democratic messengers,
who are the democratic messengers? And one of the things
that I was struck by was a staffer told me
that they thought that during this election, the twenty eight cycle,
god willing, that there would be moments where there may
(40:25):
be like actually going on something like Joe Rogan or
theovonn would actually be more meaningful because it breaks out
of the silo.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
Oh yeah, a bunch of Democrats have been on Joe
Rogan and the Theovan and it's great, Like the water's fine.
Your part of it is that long form podcasting ass
like a medium form the fath Politics pod.
Speaker 1 (40:47):
Yes, I think we're pretty much short form compared to
that to three hours.
Speaker 4 (40:52):
Yeah, anything bigger than cable news lends itself to actually
like finding rapport finding some of you agree and if
you have a conflict that tends to like go to
resolute as opposed to people like just get like cut,
getting their micscut when wandering off. And that's good. It's
good for Democrats to learn how to do that well.
And not be constantly like dodging like every possible landmin
or eggshell, having a bad news cycle and surviving it,
(41:13):
like is a very good way to discover that Actually
it's like it is more risky to be completely risk
averse than it is to create a larger volume and
a larger presence and the larger footprint. And that's the
general direction. Like you a world where every media out
that like at best only has a tiny fraction of
the country's attentionion, you have to just be in a
lot more places, a lot more at the time to
be able to break through, and then every so often,
(41:34):
like something actually catches the whole country. If you live
in fear of ever having a bad viral moment, then
you'll never have a good viral moment. And if you
ever have a good viral moment, no one will know
that you exist.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Let's talk about that, because I think one of the
things that really hurt by world was being so cautious.
Speaker 4 (41:52):
Yeah, I mean, I think it's pretty clear probably to
everyone in the universe at this point that the yeah,
the volume of communication that was coming out of the
illustration became very very small. And if you remember the beginning,
of the Harris campaign. It was this explosion like the
Brat summer that that moment, like all the Viepstakes with
all my presential candidates going on to TV all the time,
(42:13):
the kind of audition to spokespeople like that. People were
actually hearing from Democrats and hearing for them in ways
that felt new right, and they loved it. Yeah. I
was at the first I was the opening speaker at
the first rally in a battleground state of the presidential campaign.
Emily Harris came to this high school in Wisconsin and
it was just explosive, like people were ready to lift
(42:33):
the roof with their cheering and joy. And then that's
red and they recruited other people and you know, people
got involved in a level that was like just totally amazing.
And I think like those good feelings are good People
fundamentally remember, like at the deepest level, they remember what
political figures make them feel about themselves, how they make
them feel in their bodies. And to be able to
get to the point where you can then trigger any
(42:55):
kind of feeling, it involves vulnerability, which involves risk. It
just does They're communicating a lot and then being able
to find your groove and all the when you think
through like the kind of political turning point moments, they're
all things that involve emotion fundamentally, they go deeper than
arguments or ideas. And I think that's the in a way,
part of what we need to be looking for in
candidates for offices at every level and leaders who spokespeople
(43:17):
all this stuff is people who can actually make people
feel something, because that's how you can build, like memories
formed around emotions. The strongest memories are all built around emotions.
If you have an idea that you can attest to
that connects to the broader vision. The Democrats are for
the country, Like Ben, that's great, but the baseline has
to be what actually like touched you and made you
feel something and remember it.
Speaker 1 (43:34):
Yeah, I think that's right, Ben. Will you please come back?
Speaker 8 (43:37):
I'd be the leaded. Thanks for having me man, No,
Rick Wilson, Yes, Molly.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
How much of our lives have we spent talking about
Fox News?
Speaker 4 (43:51):
Too fucking much?
Speaker 1 (43:53):
Honestly, Brian kill Mead you may remember him from nothing,
that guy kill me? What did Brian Meed say this week?
Speaker 3 (44:01):
Brian killed me this week advocated for giving the homeless
lethal injections to get them.
Speaker 4 (44:06):
On the street.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (44:07):
You know. I was told I heard, I heard this
week that the rhetoric in this country was too hot, yes,
and that we need to all back down and talk
nice to do each other. I did not have injecting
the homeless with lethal injections and killing them on my
Fox News bingo card this week. Maybe I should have,
Maybe I should have lowered the standard a little bit, but.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
Jesus lowly, I mean, I understand we're not supposed to
call them unhoused because it makes us seem unrelatable as liberals.
But I still think we shouldn't kill them, you.
Speaker 3 (44:41):
Know, whether you call them homeless or unhoused or whatever
view you have of them. Brian kill Me is now
advocating since about sixty percent of homeless folks are veterans,
he's advocating killing homeless veterans. Now he has supposedly walked
it back some like week walk back on it now.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
He I did apologize, yes, And by the way, for
a Fox News host to apologize is not nothing.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
No, it's not nothing. But here's the thing. This shows
you the hypocrisy of how the networks work. If that
had happened, as we saw from somebody getting fired on
MSNBC this week for not being sufficiently sensitive about Charlie Kirk.
If that had happened in another network of any kind
and any other outlet, he would have been taken off
the set. But a Fox, it's like haha, So look,
(45:26):
Ryan killed me. There's no rocket scientist to begin with.
And maybe he thought it was a funny joke or
thought he was working up to some sort of like
statement on it, but he basically was anyone to kill
the hoholmus. I don't know, call me crazy, but that
doesn't seem like lowering the temperature with Wilson.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
I'll see you next week.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
I'll see you next week.
Speaker 1 (45:43):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best
minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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