December 2, 2024 • 41 mins
The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson examines what Kash Patel’s appointment as FBI director means. The Washington Post’s Caroline Kitchener details the latest horrors of a post-Roe world.
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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.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
And gay couples.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Rush to get married and have children before the Trump inauguration,
always a great sign. We have such a good show
for you today the Lincoln Projects Rick Wilson stops by
to talk about what Cash Bettel's appointment to the FBI
directorship means.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Then we will talk.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
To the Washington Posts Carolyn Kitchener about the latest horrors
in the post row world.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
But first the.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
News Somalie, it was a quiet weekend. Well, everyone ate
Turkey and slept through trip to Fenn, but I think
there were some interesting stories. So the first one we
have is I'm going to shock you here. The Trump
administration is laughing at the Democrats decorum.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
This is one of the problems with trying to cover
an autocrat right. So Republicans are delighted that Biden took
pictures with Trump and did a peaceful transfer of power,
or at least did that first meeting. And they think
of it as an own because this is.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
All about owning the Libs.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
So Trump campaign people told Rolling Stone some of us
have been laughing about it. Democrats spent all this time
calling Donald Trump and Nazi and Hitler, and now it's
just smile for the cameras. Again, like, this is this
fundamental problem we were just talking about with Rick Wilson,
and you'll hear us get all cranky with each other.
(01:29):
But like, an autocrat as a candidate is different than
an autocrat as a president, right, Democrats have this problem,
which is they don't want it. They didn't want to
normalize the auto, the autocracy and the candidate. But now
that he has won, he has.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
To be covered. He has to be covered, period.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Paragraph So I do think this is very hard to cover.
And again this is the fundamental disconnect between covering an
autocrat and a democracy and trying to cover what is
that normal while still being clear eyed about what is normal.
But Democrats had no choice. They had to protect norms
(02:08):
and institutions. Do I think it was great that they
took photos? Not especially, but do I think that we
at least need one party that stands up for the
rule of law and the way we do things in
this country. And if we had two, just think of
what we could do.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Yeah, it could all feel so normal, like twenty fifteen Somali.
We now know the makeup of the House and how
this Congress is shaken out, and we're starting to understand
how Republicans kept their majority in Congress.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
What are you seeing here?
Speaker 1 (02:38):
So this is a really interesting moment because if you
look back at the twenty sixteen Congress, I was actually
went back and looked at the twenty sixteen Congress. In
the twenty sixteen Congress, Democrats had I had only really
got shellacked at the House. So Democrats at one hundred
(02:59):
and ninety four seats and Republicans had had forty one seats,
so they could pretty much do anything in Congress. And
in fact, what they did the House Republicans was they
shut down the budget. They shut down they shut down
the government. That was one of the first things they did.
They controlled the House, the Senate, the Presidency, and they
shut down the government. So they had two forty one
(03:21):
Democrats had one ninety four. Now Republicans have two hundred
and twenty seats and Democrats have two fourteen seats. And
by the way, that is actually not you know, the
final result will be two twenty to two fifteen. That's
the GOP majority. That is one of the smallest margins. Ever,
(03:42):
It's even smaller than it was last Congress. The Congress
when Republicans had tenth Congress was was a bigger margin
than this, and they could barely pass anything. So but
I think it's important to realize that there's one reason
why Republicans won the House as cycle, and it's North
(04:03):
Carolina jerrymandering. So they Republican supermajority in North Carolina redrew
the districts to favor the GOP North Carolina. This is
Wiley Nicol who was a Democratic member of Congress. North
Carolina is one of the most jerrymandered states in the country.
We have to spend more on litigation than anyone else
(04:25):
in the country.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
One of the.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Poster children for extreme partisan jerrymandering. This again is a
little bit of Republicans winning by cheating.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
One of the more disturbing pieces of news that dropped
over this holiday weekend was email that Pete Hegseith, who's
nominated for Secretary of Defense, mother wrote about him disrespecting women.
What are you seeing here?
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Yeah, So, Pete Hegsa's mother wrote a email to her son,
who is hoping to become director of the Department of Defense,
and she sent it on April thirtieth, twenty eighteen, when
he was in the middle of a divorce from his
second wife, and she said, you are an abuser of women.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
That is the ugly truth. And I have no respect
for any man.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Who belittles that belittles, lies, she sleeps around, and uses
women for his own power and ego. Penelope Road, you
are the man you have been for years, and as
your mother, it pains and embarrasses me to say this,
but as a sad, sad truth, your abuse over the
years to women, dishonesty, sleeping around, betrayal, debasing, and belittling
needs to be called out. So this was after his
(05:31):
second wife had filed for a divorce, after hegseeth head
coworker in the email, Penelope Road, Sam is a good
mother and a good person under the circumstances you created.
And I know deep down that you know. For you
to label her as unstable for your own advantages, despicable
and abusive. Anyway, there's a lot to this storm and
(05:53):
it's really quite upsetting.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
And you know then the mother did, in fact.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Say she had written back and sent another email, but
she did not share it with the New York Times.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Yeah, this is coupled with many of the remarks he's
made about women do not paint a good picture for
the fellow We should give a little primer. So President
Trump truth this weekend that he might give one hundred
percent tariffs against bricks. I noticed a lot of people
don't know what bricks is, which is Brazil, Russia, India,
China and South Africa.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
What do you think about this?
Speaker 1 (06:26):
So this is Trump threatening something, threatening to do something
that probably isn't going to happen anyway. Trump is very
good at solving problems that aren't real problems. So bricks
had been musing about going off the dollar and maybe
using the Chinese currency or some other currency, but they're
not going to do this. And so Trump threatening tariffs
(06:50):
to people for something they won't do is his kind
of problem solving and none of us should be surprised
by it. He is using tariffs as a way to
try to get people to do what he want.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Yeah, and I look forward to the riots in the
streets when all our Chinese products have that big of
tariff on them.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
I mean, I also just think this is like one
of these great threats for him because it's never gonna happen,
so he doesn't have to worry about it, so he'll
threaten it.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Yeah, this will be lost in the dustbin of other
truths that never happened.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Rick Wilson is the founder of the Lincoln Project in
the host of the Enemy's List, Welcome Back, Too Fast Politics,
Rick Wilson.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Hey, Mally Johns Fast. Hope you had a great Thanksgiving?
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Yes the best. I saw you deep fried a turkey.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
Yeah, I did deep fry a turkey as a man.
Does you at RFK? Listen, I'm deep fried. I've deep
fried about I don't know twenty five turkeys in my life.
I'm writing of other things too, But RFK does not.
He does not represent the whole frying turkey brand everybody.
I mean, I'm just I'm just telling you. RFK is
the definitional turkey frying guy.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
So here's a question besides turkey, which is the subject
I want to delve deeper into because it's such a
disgusting animal that I don't like to eat and it's
quite gross. But more important, there really is a possibility
to burn oneself quite badly.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
Oh, yes, many people do and you know, and I
really thought about doing this. I actually had written the
tweet and everything, and the tweet was only libtard shill cut.
Don't fry their turkeys in the garage. It's only those
liberal frogs who cook them outside.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
So we are it is Thanksgiving weekend, which means Donald
Trump must make more announcements, because what is a weekend
for if not making more appointment announcements.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
To shock and horrify the American people.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
This is one that he had been playing back and
forth with. We knew it was possible. We thought perhaps
he would Cash Betel go.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
Okay, you know, here's the thing. The entire purpose of
all things Trump is to verify and to dismay the
American people. We get it, we do. We get it.
We get it. Cash Battel is a guy who is
deeply unqualified, of course that goes without saying, to be
the FBI director. But he's also a guy who's promised
(09:14):
many many times now that he will be the artificer
of Trump's revenge strategies against everyone who has ever offended him,
and so on and so on.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
And so on, so a lot of people, by the way,
you and.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
I are on the list. I'm afraid to say, but
you know what, I think we are right now at
a moment where where Donald Trump has had a loss
with Matt Gates being taken out of contention for Attorney General,
and he wants and has been sold this vision by
Bannon and others that the purpose of the FBI and
the Department of Justice is to punish Trump's enemies. You know,
(09:48):
he's he's if cash Betel is confirmed, and I think
he probably will be because don't expect miracles from the Senate. Kids,
just don't, just do not.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
I want to pause for a second because this is
something near and dear to my heart, and I want
to talk about why we should have hope and why
we should not be cynical. And this is going to
be very annoying to you and probably listeners. But the
reason why I want I want to have this conversation
is because this is the more cynical we are, the
(10:20):
more things are baked in, right, the less cynical we are,
the less things are baked in. So, for example, they
can lose three to four senators, Trump does not necessarily
give a shit about whether or not these people get through. Right,
He puts them up. But like Matt Gates isn't through
now it's Pambondy. That was like a two second news cycle.
(10:42):
So I think that Republican senators have more power than.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
They think here.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
And we know with Matt Gates, the reporting at the
NBC reporting was that a senator told them you have
twenty to thirty senator Republican senators voting against this nomination.
I'm just saying, like, I don't think we should ever
think of any of this as as baked in. We
should always try to open the door to people doing
the right thing, even though history has shown us that
(11:10):
they haven't. This is a time though, that is much
scarier than the last trumpad.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
I think. I think, look, the great news, the good news,
I won't say greatness. The good news is that Donald
Trump's people are by and large fucking morons. Right actually,
in the traditional political sense of they are actually stupid people.
Many of them are really dumb.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
I was actually reading about some of the people and thinking, God,
these people sound really really dumb there.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
Many of them are. Many of them could be easily
overcome by inanimate objects right there. They are not smart guys.
Now are they going to be in positions of tremendous power. Yes,
they are. That should that concern all of us, absolutely,
it should. However, I believe right now that you've got
got a very narrow window for Donald Trump to to
(12:00):
execute the on the worst of the crazy that he
wants to execute on that window. That window is again,
it is a narrow window, not a wide window. And
I think it's going to be hard for him to
pull off some of the bullshit he wants to pull
off with these people as the Senate ends up moving
from just talking about these things to having to actually
(12:21):
take votes on the nominations of these people, as the
Senate moves on to actually having to live up to
actually having their names on saying oh, yeah, I was
one of the guys who voted for cash Patel, right,
I was one of the people who voted to put
cash fricking Patel into the head of the FBI. I
(12:41):
spoke to three separate FBI officials FORBI officials over the weekend,
and none of the ones that you people think, by
the way.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Interestingly enough, not ones on cable news, not ones on.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
Cable news, all of whom said to me, Yes, the
FBI is much more conservative than a lot of people think,
but this is crazy, and this guy is this guy
is it will be? As it was pointed out to me,
he said, do you Somebody said to me, do you
want Devin Noon as this guy? He wrote, demo, Yeah,
in charge of all counter intelligence, domestic counter intelligence in
(13:13):
this country? Is that the guy you want in that job?
And the answer is obviously not only no, but fuck no.
But you know, you've got a very You've got a
very narrow, narrow window. While the compliance in the Senate
is still high because right now the Senate guys they're
not trying to negotiate for They're not trying to negotiate
(13:33):
for what they're going to do about you know this
or that budget item. They're all sort of like, ah, fuck,
we got to just deal with Trump. We'll get the
inauguration done, we'll get the we'll get the non controversial
appointments done and move on from there. That is not
going to be easy. The longer it goes, the harder
it's going to get. And look, I think this weekend
putting Charles Kushner up there as our ambassador to France
(13:56):
was an insult both to the French.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Can you push back can I push back here for sure,
And I hate to be the person to say this,
but ambassadors are fucking that's a pay for play gig, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
But here's the thing. We're also in the middle of
a European conflict right now. It's going to require serious people,
and France is one of the most important players in
the in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. And so
I'm concerned that Trump did that very deliberately to fuck
to mess with the entire.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
I mean, except Trump put Newt Gingrich's wife as ambassador
at to Holy See, his third wife, right, a Catholic.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
I mean, like, yeah, here's the thing we're not really
worried about. We're not really worried about the Vatican right
now in terms of a war fighting posture, right.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
But I'm just saying, like, ambassadorships are known to be
nonpartisan grift.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
You know, you pay, you get an ambassadorships.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
But here's the thing. I mean, the Court of Saint
James is the a position ambassadorship. That's that's the top
of the pile. There's none better than that. You don't
get a better you don't get a better diplomatic opportunity
than that. Francis the second.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Yeah, but he's putting he's putting Johnson in the or
at least last time you put Johnson in the you know,
big Republican donor.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
I mean, I don't.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
I think putting unqualified people in ambassadorships is not is nonpartisan.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
I think it's insulting though to our allies. And I
think it I think it shows you once again this
is an unseerious person and in a serious time.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yeah, but except we know he's an un serious person.
We know he's a fucking moron. But what's important is
like Cash Battel should be an eleven.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Charles Kushner should be a two.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
I don't. I don't dispute. Well, I think like a four.
But okay, I don't dispute that Cash Battel is is
legitimately problematic and dangerous. Right, Well, let's not let's not
pretend anything otherwise. He's a bad guy, and he's a
guy who who is going to publicly try to be
the face of Trump's revenge play.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
And that is you know what, No, I gotta tell
you really bad.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
That's pretty bad. And and as Charlie Sykes wrote, you
know the purpose of Cash battels to terrify people. That's
why he's there. And you know, Tim Snyder has that
phrase sato populism, where like the purpose of this kind
of populist decision, you know, we're going to put a
guy who's gonna tear it up because it's all corrupt,
is to scare the fuck out of people. It's a
dangerous position for the country, but it's also kind of inevitable.
(16:19):
You know. We have to we have to we have
to sort of adjust our reality to the inevitability of
the of the shit.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
I also think that when we talk about Cash Battel,
he's really scary. We have had really scary FBI director
Herbert Hoover put my grandfather in jail.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
Herbert Herbert Hoover was a president, right, Jed Houverer, Yeah, yeah,
Jed Gruber. I mean, and we have had nothing comparable
to Hoover in our lifetimes.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Right.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
No, No, thankfully, you know, thankfully. But I do think
it's important that we not we don't take our eye
off the ball. This is potentially an extraordinarily bad set
of outcomes.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
No, I agree, which is why I think it's so
important that people like Mike Ground who was on ABC
today talking about how how good Christopher Ray is. There's
no reason Ray has three more years on his term, right, this.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Is there's no way Trump let's Ray stay in that office.
They will die on that hill.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Yeah, But I also think, like there's RFK, there's Ray Talsy,
and then there's Pete Hegseth.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
Well, look, I think I think Pete Hegseth is now
edging toward being disqualified in this job. But even in
the minds of some of Trump's allies, they're not like
this email from his own mother about his character and
the way he treats women. I am not easily. You
and I are both, you know, were fairly jaundice about
this kind of thing. That was pretty horrifying. I think
(17:49):
we have to just admit it. That was pretty pretty
damn horrifying. That was not if you're a person with
any judgment about character, and you think character matters at all,
you can't have this guy as the secretary of Defense.
You just can't.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Right, Adultery is against the rules in the army.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
Yes, well, yes it is. It is very much against
the rules. And by the way, not simply because there's
some moral thing there. It's because it compromises you in
your in your national security position. It makes you vulnerable
to blackmail, it makes you vulnerable to manipulation, it makes
your decisions questioned by your own people as well. But
(18:30):
I do think it's important that we look at all
of these sort of moments we're in right now and
ask the question, like, you know, is there a solution
to the Cash Betel problem? Is this a guy you
can you could find a way to ensure that he
doesn't get the nomination. I think there are still there's
still a possibility he doesn't get it. But right now
(18:51):
Trump is he's going to start acting more and more
childish and judgmental and angry as things are denied.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
To him, except that he also doesn't really care if
these people get through. So you know, certainly not RFK Junior.
Speaker 4 (19:07):
Right, here's the thing, Okay, I generally agree with that,
that he doesn't really care much about these people. I
generally agree with that, but I'm always curious, and lately
particularly curious. I'm always curious. Like Trump wants certain things,
he wants certain outcomes. One of those outcomes is revenge
on his enemies, right, and a guy like Cash mattel
(19:28):
is offering him that, mister President, I will, I will.
I will crush your enemies before you. I will humiliate them,
I will hurt them. I will, I will bankrupt them.
I will. I will use the power of the state
to go after people that don't like you and that
have and that have hurt you, sir, so so badly.
But I look, I find this. I find the entire
idea that Trump is going to let this go and
(19:50):
is not going to respond to opposition in the Senate. Now,
there will be a point where he says that he's
going to start, you know, acting, asking his people to
revenge him from these these people in the Senate who
aren't giving him what he wants. I mean, I'm you
know that Mike Davis guy. The other day, right after
Patel was named, Mike Davis came out and said something
(20:13):
to the effect of of, yeah, I dare you not
to vote for him, We'll make your lives a living hell.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
Right.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
But they didn't even have to not vote for Matt Gates.
I mean, that's just you know, like Ma Gates, I mean,
that's the other thing. Just for a minute to pause
and think about It's December first, right. So Trump doesn't
even get into office until January twenty first, there's a
lot of time, just like we saw with Matt Gates,
(20:38):
Like Matt Gates pulled himself out of this thing because
he knew there was a lot more coming, right, Sure,
So the question is, like, you know, does that happen
to Pete Hegsaths Does that happen to I mean, I
think I.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
Would put Pete heggsth higher on the list of potential
you blowout? Can people? They just go, yeah, I can't
I President, I love you, I can't do it. I
can't deal with this guy right right right, because he
really is egregious. I mean he really is is a
he combines being unqualified with also being horrifying.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
One other thing I think about Pete Hegseth and I
think when I think about these candidates is like a
lot of them want to make money and don't necessarily
want to surmman service soon. Oh sure, so to fight
and fight and fight to get a job you don't
necessarily want.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Yeah, that look that I think that's a legitimate observation
about Like there are a lot of reasons why why
you would not go to the mattresses for Pete Hegseth,
and Pete Hegseth probably has a good number of reasons
now that he's starting to consider what's going to happen,
He's probably got a good number of reasons why he
doesn't want to go to the mattresses because right now
today he can go back to Fox, right, you know,
(21:48):
he could go back to Fox. He could be whatever
again at Fox. That's all find and good. But I
don't know. I don't know if you got it with
Pete Hegseth, if you get like a second chance at
political life after this, given the stuff we're hearing about it,
I think the stuff we're hearing about Hexth is a
different level than a lot of these other guys. It's
it's a more it's an uglier, nastier kind of story
(22:12):
about this guy's character.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
We'll see what happens. But I do want to talk
about what you what you think is sort of next coming.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
Fire, death, screaming, running in the darkness, you know, the.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Usual No is bright and Florida.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
No. Look, I think I think we are in a
very I think we're in a very dangerous moment because
there is that that sort of Bannen Nunez weirdo wing
of the party that really wants even if Trump isn't
that interested in all these in punishing all these people,
I think there's a there's a a wing of the
of the Trump apparatus that is very interested in punishing people,
(22:50):
and very interested in hurting people, and very interested in
causing You know that, as as Tim Sider says, sato
populism to become a big part of the of the story,
I think I can't ignore that there are people like
that around him. There are a lot of people like
that around him who really really really really really hate
people like us. And I'm not just saying it's just
(23:10):
about us, but it ain't not just about us either.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Rick Wilson my moment of zen and calm, the.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
Service as always, all right, I'll talk to you sin,
all right, all right, talk to you Sin. Bye bye.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Carolyn Kitchener is a national reporter covering abortion at the
Washington Post.
Speaker 5 (23:29):
Welcome back, Caroline, Thank you so much, Molly, thanks for
having me.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
You do this beat, which is abortion, we productive hows
more broadly by abortion is likely going to be the
first opening salvo in disassembling our rights.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
How long have you been on this beat, and what
does it feel like right now.
Speaker 5 (23:47):
I've been writing about this issue for almost six years.
It wasn't my full time job at the beginning. It's
been my full time thing for three of those years.
I'm still surprised, like I'm still surprised at things that
happen on the speed. It's still so fast evolving. I mean,
we are now more than two years, about two and
(24:09):
a half years out from the fall of Ruby Wade,
and the dynamics keep changing. And I think it is
hard to predict what a Trump administration could bring for
this issue.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
But it's not going to be good. I'm going to
put my hand on a rock right now and say
it's not going to be good.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
I want to talk about the election for a minute,
because a lot of places voters did this thing where
they voted to enshrine abortion rights in their constitution, but
then voted for Trump or Republicans or seem to not
quite make the leap to realize that the people they
were voting for now have to enact a lot of
(24:47):
these ballot initiatives, and as we've seen from Florida, a
lot of times Republicans just don't do what the people
vote for.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
I spent a lot of time ahead of the election
talk to people who really care about abortion rights, who
are per choice, but who are also more Republican leaning
or independent. I really wanted to figure out, like how
when people were faced, you know, not just with the
direct question of do you want to enshrine abortion rights
(25:18):
in the constitution, but who do you want for president?
I wanted to know how much their views on abortion
would factor into that decision. And before the election, I mean,
I just I really struggled to find people that were
wrestling with that. Like almost everybody that I found to
talk to was like, oh, yeah, I support abortion rights,
I care a lot about this issue, but I'm voting
for Trump.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Wow, And were you like, were you guys like he
did overturn revyweight or they just didn't put it together.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (25:46):
I mean I would always ask that question, and it
was interesting. I mean, I think you had some people
for whom abortion is just you know, fairly far down
on the list, like of the issues that they care about,
they care about, you know, the economy, immigration, more. But
then here are other women that I spoke to, and
this was like these interviews were mostly with women They said,
(26:07):
I just don't think he's going to do anything else
on this because.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
We've lost so many rights. What's another one.
Speaker 5 (26:13):
He wants it to go back to the States. That
was a line that really resonated with people. They really
believe that, you know, he wants me to go back
to the States, and they just weren't concerned. Which was
interesting because what you saw as you got further and
further into the campaign was Trump and Vance doing everything
that they could to move away from this issue and
(26:33):
to convince people of exactly this that they were not
going to do more that they would veto a national
abortion ban, all of those things. And what I found
from my reporting is that those messages really resonated with
the group of people that Harris and Trump were fighting for,
these Republican leaning independent women.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
So explain, yeah, I mean, I need.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
More on this.
Speaker 5 (26:57):
What you heard a lot in the campaign when it
came to abortion policies was national abortion ban. You heard
a lot about that concept, and I do think it's very,
very unlikely that a national abortion ban would pass, just
because of the reality of what Congress looks like. But
what is also true is that there's a lot of
(27:17):
things that the Trump administration could do without Congress com stack. Yeah,
the constack through the agencies, Like, there are a lot
of things that they could do, but all of those
things that they could do are like they're much more nuanced.
They are sort of hard to explain. They're a little
bit more in the weeds. People didn't know about those things.
(27:38):
You know, Harris didn't really make those things part of
the conversation. I would say, she really just kept talking
about the National Abortion Band. So the women that I
spoke to were kind of sharp enough to realize that,
like that was very unlikely. And you know, which is
something that I agree with. It wasn't on their radar
that there were other things that a Trump administration could
do on this issue.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Let's talk for a minute about what is going on
right now. There are all of these balid initiatives. Do
you think that they will get enacted?
Speaker 5 (28:08):
I do. I mean the ones that pass Every time
I talk about this. It's the results of the ballot
initiatives were complicated because while the abortion rights side, you know,
succeeded in seven of the ten states where abortion was
on the ballot, they failed in Florida. And that's not
because it wasn't popular in Florida. It's because in Florida
you needed sixty percent, which is really hard for anything.
(28:30):
But Florida was just far and away the most important
state for this, just because of like how big this
state is and it's the third most populous state. Just
a ton of abortions, especially before the six week ban
took effect, just a ton of abortions happened there. It
was for a long time this like oasis of abortion
(28:50):
access in the South, which now we have, you know,
strict bands blanketing the whole region. So it was really,
really really important for abortion rights advocates, Like that state
was sort of the like the crown jewel of the
ballot initiatives, and it didn't pass there. So I think
it is really hard to know where to go from here.
I mean, for abortion rights advocates, these ballot measures, they're
(29:13):
very excited about the prospect of the battle measures, but
they don't solve the issue in every state because in
different states it's harder to get it on or even
impossible to get it on. I mean Texas, Like it's
just that it would never happen in Texas, and it's
not this sort of cure al that abortion rights advocates
are really hoping for, right, Like.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
What does the abortion landscape look like now?
Speaker 1 (29:36):
If you are a woman who gets pregnant in one
of these states, say South Carolina, where can you go?
Where are the few sort of free states still?
Speaker 5 (29:50):
Well? I think what the reality for women in these
states with strict bands is that this landscape looks like
the internet more than traveling to well, I don't know
that I can say more than traveling to other states,
but what so many people are doing now is going
online and ordering pills. And that is a thing that
(30:10):
the Trump administration could get in the way of. It's
unclear whether they're going to make a move to do that,
but they could. But in terms of like where there
is access, I mean, for somebody in Florida, the nearest
clinic is going to be North Carolina, which is you know,
if you're in Miami. I don't know off the top
of my head, but that is a really, really, really
(30:31):
long drive. When I visited, I went to a Florida
clinic right after the band took a fact in the spring,
and they weren't talking about driving. They were talking about flying,
like they just it's not a realistic drive for people
to make and but for a lot of the women
that I was speaking to, it just you know, many
of them had never been on a plane. Like the
(30:52):
idea that they would just you know, get on a
plane and somehow leave their families and get childcare and
all the things that you have to do to go
on a trip was just you know, even the money aside,
it just wasn't realistic.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
These women will be okay with the abortion pills until
they're not.
Speaker 5 (31:08):
Yeah, I mean the anti abortion side has identified pills
as the target, right. You know, they know that this
is happening. They know that many pills are getting to
people in vand states through websites. You Know what I
heard consistently for you know, a year plus before the
election was then this is from the anti abortion side,
(31:31):
we're not going to see anything until the election. They
didn't want to really crack down before the election because
they knew that this issue was very popular. But now,
you know, I just had a piece out last week
that was about you know what all of the anti
abortion groups are planning, particularly like the statewide once there's
there's a very active group in Texas called Texas Right
(31:51):
to Life that's the biggest anti abortion group there. They
have really a reputation for you know, trying like particularly
aggressive and creative ways to like crack down on things
and really you know, set the bar for the rest
of the country, you know, when it comes to anti
abortion crackdown measures, and they are ready are they are
planning you know, several new lawsuits that we're going to
(32:13):
see early in the new year. They are trying to
find plaintiffs. They're looking specifically for like male partners of
women who had abortions that are upset. So I do
think you're going to see a wave of like attempts
to crack down on pills getting into band states.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Your body, my choice, right, I mean, ultimately that's what
we're talking about, right.
Speaker 5 (32:35):
I think that they recognize that these men are their
best option for pursuing some of these lawsuits, and they
are recruiting them. They are going to like anti abortion
crisis pregnancy centers, and they are looking for, you know,
people that are close to a woman who had an
(32:57):
abortion and who are angry about it.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Ask about the women who can't get pre natal care,
Like what's happening to women not getting dncs?
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Because I know you wrote about that, and that is
just horrifying.
Speaker 5 (33:09):
Yeah, I think that everybody should be watching the maternal
mortality committees. So every state has a committee mostly medical experts.
Usually it's about twenty and they get together and they
review cases of maternal deaths and they are looking to
really dig in and see what went wrong and was
(33:30):
this preventable? And these committees they, for various reasons, they
operate on about a two year lag And so we
are just now at the point when these committees are
starting to review cases that may have been affected by
the fall of Row and all of these new bands.
And so what I am watching for now is, you know,
obviously there have been some incredible reporting from Pro Publica
(33:54):
on you know, individual cases of women who have died.
The question though, that I think everyone is wondering, is like,
how much is that happening? How often is that happening?
What is the big picture there? And these maternal mortality
committees they are where we will get that big picture.
That is something to watch for, I think in the
coming months.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Yeah, we're seeing more and more of that. So talk
to us for a minute about how we're seeing Republicans
kind of mess with that, right isn't there some way
in which Republicans are trying to make it so they're
not reviewing the data as quickly.
Speaker 5 (34:27):
Yeah, well, I just had a story yesterday about in Texas,
which is the biggest state with a strict abortion man.
It was the first state to enact as strict abortion man.
So it's really important for getting a big picture of
what's happening, like just state by state.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Because their ban also started a year before.
Speaker 5 (34:45):
Exactly nine months before, and so it just gives us
like more perspective than really any other state. And so
that's the one that I've been watching most closely. And
the committee was told recently that this is what I
recorded yesterday. They were told recent that they would be
skipping over the years twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three,
(35:06):
which you know, the first two years that the abortion
van was in effect. You know, they said that they
were doing this to be more contemporaneous, is what they said. Basically,
they see their charge, as you know, examining cases in
a timely manner so that it can inform the recommendations
that they give to policymakers. And they were saying, you know,
(35:27):
we just feel we're on too much of a delay,
so it doesn't allow us to provide timely recommendations, and
that is why we are changing this. I spoke with
several members of the committee who you know, all spoke
anonymously that we're really concerned about this because, you know,
they they see as we all do, that those years
are really important to examine because they're the first two
(35:50):
full years that this like new policy, this huge new
policy that affects maternal health is taking effect. And by
skipping them, like you're you know, they they were very
concerned that they were going to miss deaths and the
deaths you know that resulted from abortion bands, and that
was very concerning to them.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Yeah, exactly, It's unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
So what are you watching now?
Speaker 5 (36:13):
I will definitely be watching these maternal mortality committees, but
I also think that it's important to watch a couple
of key agencies and then the Trump administration, particularly the
Department of Justice, the Department of Health and Human Services
HHS was actually the one, it really is the agency
that the anti abortion groups were most you know, have
(36:34):
been most focused on. Was Trump has done all of
these gymnastics to back away from abortion. They have been
later focused on who he appoints to lead HHS and
what's so they've been really you know, fighting hard. They
were fighting hard to get him to pick somebody who
was anti abortion and also have anti abortion under secretaries
(36:57):
as well. That's not how that played out. RFK is
you know, obviously a very complicated figure. But you know,
he has expressed support for abortion rights, like he is
pro choice, and so that is not the person, right, well,
theorectly right.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
He's also pro raw milk, but yes, continue.
Speaker 5 (37:15):
But when it comes to this issue, he has you know,
publicly expressed that he is very in supportive abortion rights.
So that obviously wasn't the person that they wanted. And
then to add on to that, we had, you know,
Roger Severino, who wrote the HHS and abortion related chapter
of Project twenty twenty five. A lot of there was
a big campaign, and I think a lot of people
(37:37):
expected that he would be appointed as an under secretary
in HHS, and it just came out that he is
not being selected for that. So that was another blow
to the anti abortion movement. So I sort of watching
that with interest play out because I do think that
that is you know, potentially the Trump administratortion saying, like,
we recognize that people are very upset about this issue,
(38:00):
not going to do anything about it right now at least,
but I think it's just important. I think it's an
important thing to keep an eye on. Is who he
has leading those agencies.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Yeah, I'll say, and I think that we are in
this bizarre, bizarre moment in American history.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I hope you will
come back.
Speaker 5 (38:17):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 4 (38:21):
No moment full so, Molly, my moment of fuckery here
is that Cash Bttel is already saying that as the
director of the FBI, of the nation's pre eminent law
enforcement organization, that he is going to use the power
of the FBI to punish people that he doesn't like
and that Donald Trump doesn't like, and that have that
(38:41):
we're quote unquote very mean to Donald Trump. And so
the odd thing about our country right now, in my mind,
is that this is being taken as a sort of
normal activity. This is being seen as kind of like,
this is what they get to do because Trump won
the election. I find that more than a little bit
disturbing and were a little bit troubling, and I find
(39:03):
it fascinating that a lot of our media friends are
pretty much normalizing this one too. There's a sense of like, oh, well,
you know that's Trump. Trump won. I guess, so here
we are. I think Patel is a is a separate
level of shit that's worse than, worse than in consequence
than a lot of these other possible appointments that Trump's
talking about.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
So I'm going to for my moment of fuck Graham,
going to disagree with you.
Speaker 4 (39:28):
Wow, Okay, see how it is.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
I think that for sure, Trump is an autocrat, ran
as an autocrat, probably would say he was an autocrat
and a candidate, we couldn't normalize him for sure because
he was running on a completely non democratic platform. But
now that he is president, we have to cover him,
and that doesn't mean.
Speaker 4 (39:50):
Normal I'm what he's saying, we don't cover him.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Right, But I'm just saying, like the idea, I feel
like the millions of people voted for him, and that
is in itself a kind of normalization, like it or not.
And so I do think like that is why when
we cover him, we have to be so focused on
norms and institutions and the real damage as opposed to
(40:14):
the astatic damage.
Speaker 4 (40:16):
Yeah, look, I get that, I get that, But I
do think you can't ignore the potential presence of a
administration that is overtly dedicated to punishing its enemies.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
Yeah, for sure, I think.
Speaker 4 (40:28):
You got You've got to keep that, You've got to
keep that sort of top of mind about what the
what the consequences are of the consequences of ignoring that,
I think are are high order bad as I like
to say I have.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
I feel like we're not going to be able to
ignore it.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Rick, personally and professionally, we are now, No, we are not.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
Rick Wilson, Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday to 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.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
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.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
And gay couples.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Rush to get married and have children before the Trump inauguration,
always a great sign. We have such a good show
for you today the Lincoln Projects Rick Wilson stops by
to talk about what Cash Bettel's appointment to the FBI
directorship means.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Then we will talk.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
To the Washington Posts Carolyn Kitchener about the latest horrors
in the post row world.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
But first the.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
News Somalie, it was a quiet weekend. Well, everyone ate
Turkey and slept through trip to Fenn, but I think
there were some interesting stories. So the first one we
have is I'm going to shock you here. The Trump
administration is laughing at the Democrats decorum.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
This is one of the problems with trying to cover
an autocrat right. So Republicans are delighted that Biden took
pictures with Trump and did a peaceful transfer of power,
or at least did that first meeting. And they think
of it as an own because this is.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
All about owning the Libs.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
So Trump campaign people told Rolling Stone some of us
have been laughing about it. Democrats spent all this time
calling Donald Trump and Nazi and Hitler, and now it's
just smile for the cameras. Again, like, this is this
fundamental problem we were just talking about with Rick Wilson,
and you'll hear us get all cranky with each other.
(01:29):
But like, an autocrat as a candidate is different than
an autocrat as a president, right, Democrats have this problem,
which is they don't want it. They didn't want to
normalize the auto, the autocracy and the candidate. But now
that he has won, he has.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
To be covered. He has to be covered, period.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Paragraph So I do think this is very hard to cover.
And again this is the fundamental disconnect between covering an
autocrat and a democracy and trying to cover what is
that normal while still being clear eyed about what is normal.
But Democrats had no choice. They had to protect norms
(02:08):
and institutions. Do I think it was great that they
took photos? Not especially, but do I think that we
at least need one party that stands up for the
rule of law and the way we do things in
this country. And if we had two, just think of
what we could do.
Speaker 3 (02:24):
Yeah, it could all feel so normal, like twenty fifteen Somali.
We now know the makeup of the House and how
this Congress is shaken out, and we're starting to understand
how Republicans kept their majority in Congress.
Speaker 4 (02:37):
What are you seeing here?
Speaker 1 (02:38):
So this is a really interesting moment because if you
look back at the twenty sixteen Congress, I was actually
went back and looked at the twenty sixteen Congress. In
the twenty sixteen Congress, Democrats had I had only really
got shellacked at the House. So Democrats at one hundred
(02:59):
and ninety four seats and Republicans had had forty one seats,
so they could pretty much do anything in Congress. And
in fact, what they did the House Republicans was they
shut down the budget. They shut down they shut down
the government. That was one of the first things they did.
They controlled the House, the Senate, the Presidency, and they
shut down the government. So they had two forty one
(03:21):
Democrats had one ninety four. Now Republicans have two hundred
and twenty seats and Democrats have two fourteen seats. And
by the way, that is actually not you know, the
final result will be two twenty to two fifteen. That's
the GOP majority. That is one of the smallest margins. Ever,
(03:42):
It's even smaller than it was last Congress. The Congress
when Republicans had tenth Congress was was a bigger margin
than this, and they could barely pass anything. So but
I think it's important to realize that there's one reason
why Republicans won the House as cycle, and it's North
(04:03):
Carolina jerrymandering. So they Republican supermajority in North Carolina redrew
the districts to favor the GOP North Carolina. This is
Wiley Nicol who was a Democratic member of Congress. North
Carolina is one of the most jerrymandered states in the country.
We have to spend more on litigation than anyone else
(04:25):
in the country.
Speaker 2 (04:26):
One of the.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Poster children for extreme partisan jerrymandering. This again is a
little bit of Republicans winning by cheating.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
One of the more disturbing pieces of news that dropped
over this holiday weekend was email that Pete Hegseith, who's
nominated for Secretary of Defense, mother wrote about him disrespecting women.
What are you seeing here?
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Yeah, So, Pete Hegsa's mother wrote a email to her son,
who is hoping to become director of the Department of Defense,
and she sent it on April thirtieth, twenty eighteen, when
he was in the middle of a divorce from his
second wife, and she said, you are an abuser of women.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
That is the ugly truth. And I have no respect
for any man.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Who belittles that belittles, lies, she sleeps around, and uses
women for his own power and ego. Penelope Road, you
are the man you have been for years, and as
your mother, it pains and embarrasses me to say this,
but as a sad, sad truth, your abuse over the
years to women, dishonesty, sleeping around, betrayal, debasing, and belittling
needs to be called out. So this was after his
(05:31):
second wife had filed for a divorce, after hegseeth head
coworker in the email, Penelope Road, Sam is a good
mother and a good person under the circumstances you created.
And I know deep down that you know. For you
to label her as unstable for your own advantages, despicable
and abusive. Anyway, there's a lot to this storm and
(05:53):
it's really quite upsetting.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
And you know then the mother did, in fact.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Say she had written back and sent another email, but
she did not share it with the New York Times.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Yeah, this is coupled with many of the remarks he's
made about women do not paint a good picture for
the fellow We should give a little primer. So President
Trump truth this weekend that he might give one hundred
percent tariffs against bricks. I noticed a lot of people
don't know what bricks is, which is Brazil, Russia, India,
China and South Africa.
Speaker 4 (06:24):
What do you think about this?
Speaker 1 (06:26):
So this is Trump threatening something, threatening to do something
that probably isn't going to happen anyway. Trump is very
good at solving problems that aren't real problems. So bricks
had been musing about going off the dollar and maybe
using the Chinese currency or some other currency, but they're
not going to do this. And so Trump threatening tariffs
(06:50):
to people for something they won't do is his kind
of problem solving and none of us should be surprised
by it. He is using tariffs as a way to
try to get people to do what he want.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Yeah, and I look forward to the riots in the
streets when all our Chinese products have that big of
tariff on them.
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
I mean, I also just think this is like one
of these great threats for him because it's never gonna happen,
so he doesn't have to worry about it, so he'll
threaten it.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
Yeah, this will be lost in the dustbin of other
truths that never happened.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
Rick Wilson is the founder of the Lincoln Project in
the host of the Enemy's List, Welcome Back, Too Fast Politics,
Rick Wilson.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Hey, Mally Johns Fast. Hope you had a great Thanksgiving?
Speaker 2 (07:34):
Yes the best. I saw you deep fried a turkey.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
Yeah, I did deep fry a turkey as a man.
Does you at RFK? Listen, I'm deep fried. I've deep
fried about I don't know twenty five turkeys in my life.
I'm writing of other things too, But RFK does not.
He does not represent the whole frying turkey brand everybody.
I mean, I'm just I'm just telling you. RFK is
the definitional turkey frying guy.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
So here's a question besides turkey, which is the subject
I want to delve deeper into because it's such a
disgusting animal that I don't like to eat and it's
quite gross. But more important, there really is a possibility
to burn oneself quite badly.
Speaker 4 (08:14):
Oh, yes, many people do and you know, and I
really thought about doing this. I actually had written the
tweet and everything, and the tweet was only libtard shill cut.
Don't fry their turkeys in the garage. It's only those
liberal frogs who cook them outside.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
So we are it is Thanksgiving weekend, which means Donald
Trump must make more announcements, because what is a weekend
for if not making more appointment announcements.
Speaker 4 (08:42):
To shock and horrify the American people.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
This is one that he had been playing back and
forth with. We knew it was possible. We thought perhaps
he would Cash Betel go.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
Okay, you know, here's the thing. The entire purpose of
all things Trump is to verify and to dismay the
American people. We get it, we do. We get it.
We get it. Cash Battel is a guy who is
deeply unqualified, of course that goes without saying, to be
the FBI director. But he's also a guy who's promised
(09:14):
many many times now that he will be the artificer
of Trump's revenge strategies against everyone who has ever offended him,
and so on and so on.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
And so on, so a lot of people, by the way,
you and.
Speaker 4 (09:26):
I are on the list. I'm afraid to say, but
you know what, I think we are right now at
a moment where where Donald Trump has had a loss
with Matt Gates being taken out of contention for Attorney General,
and he wants and has been sold this vision by
Bannon and others that the purpose of the FBI and
the Department of Justice is to punish Trump's enemies. You know,
(09:48):
he's he's if cash Betel is confirmed, and I think
he probably will be because don't expect miracles from the Senate. Kids,
just don't, just do not.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
I want to pause for a second because this is
something near and dear to my heart, and I want
to talk about why we should have hope and why
we should not be cynical. And this is going to
be very annoying to you and probably listeners. But the
reason why I want I want to have this conversation
is because this is the more cynical we are, the
(10:20):
more things are baked in, right, the less cynical we are,
the less things are baked in. So, for example, they
can lose three to four senators, Trump does not necessarily
give a shit about whether or not these people get through. Right,
He puts them up. But like Matt Gates isn't through
now it's Pambondy. That was like a two second news cycle.
(10:42):
So I think that Republican senators have more power than.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
They think here.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
And we know with Matt Gates, the reporting at the
NBC reporting was that a senator told them you have
twenty to thirty senator Republican senators voting against this nomination.
I'm just saying, like, I don't think we should ever
think of any of this as as baked in. We
should always try to open the door to people doing
the right thing, even though history has shown us that
(11:10):
they haven't. This is a time though, that is much
scarier than the last trumpad.
Speaker 4 (11:15):
I think. I think, look, the great news, the good news,
I won't say greatness. The good news is that Donald
Trump's people are by and large fucking morons. Right actually,
in the traditional political sense of they are actually stupid people.
Many of them are really dumb.
Speaker 1 (11:33):
I was actually reading about some of the people and thinking, God,
these people sound really really dumb there.
Speaker 4 (11:39):
Many of them are. Many of them could be easily
overcome by inanimate objects right there. They are not smart guys.
Now are they going to be in positions of tremendous power. Yes,
they are. That should that concern all of us, absolutely,
it should. However, I believe right now that you've got
got a very narrow window for Donald Trump to to
(12:00):
execute the on the worst of the crazy that he
wants to execute on that window. That window is again,
it is a narrow window, not a wide window. And
I think it's going to be hard for him to
pull off some of the bullshit he wants to pull
off with these people as the Senate ends up moving
from just talking about these things to having to actually
(12:21):
take votes on the nominations of these people, as the
Senate moves on to actually having to live up to
actually having their names on saying oh, yeah, I was
one of the guys who voted for cash Patel, right,
I was one of the people who voted to put
cash fricking Patel into the head of the FBI. I
(12:41):
spoke to three separate FBI officials FORBI officials over the weekend,
and none of the ones that you people think, by
the way.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Interestingly enough, not ones on cable news, not ones on.
Speaker 4 (12:51):
Cable news, all of whom said to me, Yes, the
FBI is much more conservative than a lot of people think,
but this is crazy, and this guy is this guy
is it will be? As it was pointed out to me,
he said, do you Somebody said to me, do you
want Devin Noon as this guy? He wrote, demo, Yeah,
in charge of all counter intelligence, domestic counter intelligence in
(13:13):
this country? Is that the guy you want in that job?
And the answer is obviously not only no, but fuck no.
But you know, you've got a very You've got a
very narrow, narrow window. While the compliance in the Senate
is still high because right now the Senate guys they're
not trying to negotiate for They're not trying to negotiate
(13:33):
for what they're going to do about you know this
or that budget item. They're all sort of like, ah, fuck,
we got to just deal with Trump. We'll get the
inauguration done, we'll get the we'll get the non controversial
appointments done and move on from there. That is not
going to be easy. The longer it goes, the harder
it's going to get. And look, I think this weekend
putting Charles Kushner up there as our ambassador to France
(13:56):
was an insult both to the French.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Can you push back can I push back here for sure,
And I hate to be the person to say this,
but ambassadors are fucking that's a pay for play gig, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
But here's the thing. We're also in the middle of
a European conflict right now. It's going to require serious people,
and France is one of the most important players in
the in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. And so
I'm concerned that Trump did that very deliberately to fuck
to mess with the entire.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
I mean, except Trump put Newt Gingrich's wife as ambassador
at to Holy See, his third wife, right, a Catholic.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
I mean, like, yeah, here's the thing we're not really
worried about. We're not really worried about the Vatican right
now in terms of a war fighting posture, right.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
But I'm just saying, like, ambassadorships are known to be
nonpartisan grift.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
You know, you pay, you get an ambassadorships.
Speaker 4 (14:48):
But here's the thing. I mean, the Court of Saint
James is the a position ambassadorship. That's that's the top
of the pile. There's none better than that. You don't
get a better you don't get a better diplomatic opportunity
than that. Francis the second.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Yeah, but he's putting he's putting Johnson in the or
at least last time you put Johnson in the you know,
big Republican donor.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
I mean, I don't.
Speaker 1 (15:09):
I think putting unqualified people in ambassadorships is not is nonpartisan.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
I think it's insulting though to our allies. And I
think it I think it shows you once again this
is an unseerious person and in a serious time.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Yeah, but except we know he's an un serious person.
We know he's a fucking moron. But what's important is
like Cash Battel should be an eleven.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Charles Kushner should be a two.
Speaker 4 (15:36):
I don't. I don't dispute. Well, I think like a four.
But okay, I don't dispute that Cash Battel is is
legitimately problematic and dangerous. Right, Well, let's not let's not
pretend anything otherwise. He's a bad guy, and he's a
guy who who is going to publicly try to be
the face of Trump's revenge play.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
And that is you know what, No, I gotta tell
you really bad.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
That's pretty bad. And and as Charlie Sykes wrote, you
know the purpose of Cash battels to terrify people. That's
why he's there. And you know, Tim Snyder has that
phrase sato populism, where like the purpose of this kind
of populist decision, you know, we're going to put a
guy who's gonna tear it up because it's all corrupt,
is to scare the fuck out of people. It's a
dangerous position for the country, but it's also kind of inevitable.
(16:19):
You know. We have to we have to we have
to sort of adjust our reality to the inevitability of
the of the shit.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
I agree.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
I also think that when we talk about Cash Battel,
he's really scary. We have had really scary FBI director
Herbert Hoover put my grandfather in jail.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
Herbert Herbert Hoover was a president, right, Jed Houverer, Yeah, yeah,
Jed Gruber. I mean, and we have had nothing comparable
to Hoover in our lifetimes.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Right.
Speaker 4 (16:51):
No, No, thankfully, you know, thankfully. But I do think
it's important that we not we don't take our eye
off the ball. This is potentially an extraordinarily bad set
of outcomes.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
No, I agree, which is why I think it's so
important that people like Mike Ground who was on ABC
today talking about how how good Christopher Ray is. There's
no reason Ray has three more years on his term, right, this.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Is there's no way Trump let's Ray stay in that office.
They will die on that hill.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Yeah, But I also think, like there's RFK, there's Ray Talsy,
and then there's Pete Hegseth.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
Well, look, I think I think Pete Hegseth is now
edging toward being disqualified in this job. But even in
the minds of some of Trump's allies, they're not like
this email from his own mother about his character and
the way he treats women. I am not easily. You
and I are both, you know, were fairly jaundice about
this kind of thing. That was pretty horrifying. I think
(17:49):
we have to just admit it. That was pretty pretty
damn horrifying. That was not if you're a person with
any judgment about character, and you think character matters at all,
you can't have this guy as the secretary of Defense.
You just can't.
Speaker 1 (18:02):
Right, Adultery is against the rules in the army.
Speaker 4 (18:07):
Yes, well, yes it is. It is very much against
the rules. And by the way, not simply because there's
some moral thing there. It's because it compromises you in
your in your national security position. It makes you vulnerable
to blackmail, it makes you vulnerable to manipulation, it makes
your decisions questioned by your own people as well. But
(18:30):
I do think it's important that we look at all
of these sort of moments we're in right now and
ask the question, like, you know, is there a solution
to the Cash Betel problem? Is this a guy you
can you could find a way to ensure that he
doesn't get the nomination. I think there are still there's
still a possibility he doesn't get it. But right now
(18:51):
Trump is he's going to start acting more and more
childish and judgmental and angry as things are denied.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
To him, except that he also doesn't really care if
these people get through. So you know, certainly not RFK Junior.
Speaker 4 (19:07):
Right, here's the thing, Okay, I generally agree with that,
that he doesn't really care much about these people. I
generally agree with that, but I'm always curious, and lately
particularly curious. I'm always curious. Like Trump wants certain things,
he wants certain outcomes. One of those outcomes is revenge
on his enemies, right, and a guy like Cash mattel
(19:28):
is offering him that, mister President, I will, I will.
I will crush your enemies before you. I will humiliate them,
I will hurt them. I will, I will bankrupt them.
I will. I will use the power of the state
to go after people that don't like you and that
have and that have hurt you, sir, so so badly.
But I look, I find this. I find the entire
idea that Trump is going to let this go and
(19:50):
is not going to respond to opposition in the Senate. Now,
there will be a point where he says that he's
going to start, you know, acting, asking his people to
revenge him from these these people in the Senate who
aren't giving him what he wants. I mean, I'm you
know that Mike Davis guy. The other day, right after
Patel was named, Mike Davis came out and said something
(20:13):
to the effect of of, yeah, I dare you not
to vote for him, We'll make your lives a living hell.
Speaker 5 (20:18):
Right.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
But they didn't even have to not vote for Matt Gates.
I mean, that's just you know, like Ma Gates, I mean,
that's the other thing. Just for a minute to pause
and think about It's December first, right. So Trump doesn't
even get into office until January twenty first, there's a
lot of time, just like we saw with Matt Gates,
(20:38):
Like Matt Gates pulled himself out of this thing because
he knew there was a lot more coming, right, Sure,
So the question is, like, you know, does that happen
to Pete Hegsaths Does that happen to I mean, I
think I.
Speaker 4 (20:52):
Would put Pete heggsth higher on the list of potential
you blowout? Can people? They just go, yeah, I can't
I President, I love you, I can't do it. I
can't deal with this guy right right right, because he
really is egregious. I mean he really is is a
he combines being unqualified with also being horrifying.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
One other thing I think about Pete Hegseth and I
think when I think about these candidates is like a
lot of them want to make money and don't necessarily
want to surmman service soon. Oh sure, so to fight
and fight and fight to get a job you don't
necessarily want.
Speaker 4 (21:28):
Yeah, that look that I think that's a legitimate observation
about Like there are a lot of reasons why why
you would not go to the mattresses for Pete Hegseth,
and Pete Hegseth probably has a good number of reasons
now that he's starting to consider what's going to happen,
He's probably got a good number of reasons why he
doesn't want to go to the mattresses because right now
today he can go back to Fox, right, you know,
(21:48):
he could go back to Fox. He could be whatever
again at Fox. That's all find and good. But I
don't know. I don't know if you got it with
Pete Hegseth, if you get like a second chance at
political life after this, given the stuff we're hearing about it,
I think the stuff we're hearing about Hexth is a
different level than a lot of these other guys. It's
it's a more it's an uglier, nastier kind of story
(22:12):
about this guy's character.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
We'll see what happens. But I do want to talk
about what you what you think is sort of next coming.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
Fire, death, screaming, running in the darkness, you know, the.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
Usual No is bright and Florida.
Speaker 4 (22:28):
No. Look, I think I think we are in a
very I think we're in a very dangerous moment because
there is that that sort of Bannen Nunez weirdo wing
of the party that really wants even if Trump isn't
that interested in all these in punishing all these people,
I think there's a there's a a wing of the
of the Trump apparatus that is very interested in punishing people,
(22:50):
and very interested in hurting people, and very interested in
causing You know that, as as Tim Sider says, sato
populism to become a big part of the of the story,
I think I can't ignore that there are people like
that around him. There are a lot of people like
that around him who really really really really really hate
people like us. And I'm not just saying it's just
(23:10):
about us, but it ain't not just about us either.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
Rick Wilson my moment of zen and calm, the.
Speaker 4 (23:17):
Service as always, all right, I'll talk to you sin,
all right, all right, talk to you Sin. Bye bye.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
Carolyn Kitchener is a national reporter covering abortion at the
Washington Post.
Speaker 5 (23:29):
Welcome back, Caroline, Thank you so much, Molly, thanks for
having me.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
You do this beat, which is abortion, we productive hows
more broadly by abortion is likely going to be the
first opening salvo in disassembling our rights.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
How long have you been on this beat, and what
does it feel like right now.
Speaker 5 (23:47):
I've been writing about this issue for almost six years.
It wasn't my full time job at the beginning. It's
been my full time thing for three of those years.
I'm still surprised, like I'm still surprised at things that
happen on the speed. It's still so fast evolving. I mean,
we are now more than two years, about two and
(24:09):
a half years out from the fall of Ruby Wade,
and the dynamics keep changing. And I think it is
hard to predict what a Trump administration could bring for
this issue.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
But it's not going to be good. I'm going to
put my hand on a rock right now and say
it's not going to be good.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
I want to talk about the election for a minute,
because a lot of places voters did this thing where
they voted to enshrine abortion rights in their constitution, but
then voted for Trump or Republicans or seem to not
quite make the leap to realize that the people they
were voting for now have to enact a lot of
(24:47):
these ballot initiatives, and as we've seen from Florida, a
lot of times Republicans just don't do what the people
vote for.
Speaker 5 (24:56):
I spent a lot of time ahead of the election
talk to people who really care about abortion rights, who
are per choice, but who are also more Republican leaning
or independent. I really wanted to figure out, like how
when people were faced, you know, not just with the
direct question of do you want to enshrine abortion rights
(25:18):
in the constitution, but who do you want for president?
I wanted to know how much their views on abortion
would factor into that decision. And before the election, I mean,
I just I really struggled to find people that were
wrestling with that. Like almost everybody that I found to
talk to was like, oh, yeah, I support abortion rights,
I care a lot about this issue, but I'm voting
for Trump.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
Wow, And were you like, were you guys like he
did overturn revyweight or they just didn't put it together.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (25:46):
I mean I would always ask that question, and it
was interesting. I mean, I think you had some people
for whom abortion is just you know, fairly far down
on the list, like of the issues that they care about,
they care about, you know, the economy, immigration, more. But
then here are other women that I spoke to, and
this was like these interviews were mostly with women They said,
(26:07):
I just don't think he's going to do anything else
on this because.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
We've lost so many rights. What's another one.
Speaker 5 (26:13):
He wants it to go back to the States. That
was a line that really resonated with people. They really
believe that, you know, he wants me to go back
to the States, and they just weren't concerned. Which was
interesting because what you saw as you got further and
further into the campaign was Trump and Vance doing everything
that they could to move away from this issue and
(26:33):
to convince people of exactly this that they were not
going to do more that they would veto a national
abortion ban, all of those things. And what I found
from my reporting is that those messages really resonated with
the group of people that Harris and Trump were fighting for,
these Republican leaning independent women.
Speaker 1 (26:52):
So explain, yeah, I mean, I need.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Speaker 5 (26:57):
What you heard a lot in the campaign when it
came to abortion policies was national abortion ban. You heard
a lot about that concept, and I do think it's very,
very unlikely that a national abortion ban would pass, just
because of the reality of what Congress looks like. But
what is also true is that there's a lot of
(27:17):
things that the Trump administration could do without Congress com stack. Yeah,
the constack through the agencies, Like, there are a lot
of things that they could do, but all of those
things that they could do are like they're much more nuanced.
They are sort of hard to explain. They're a little
bit more in the weeds. People didn't know about those things.
(27:38):
You know, Harris didn't really make those things part of
the conversation. I would say, she really just kept talking
about the National Abortion Band. So the women that I
spoke to were kind of sharp enough to realize that,
like that was very unlikely. And you know, which is
something that I agree with. It wasn't on their radar
that there were other things that a Trump administration could
do on this issue.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Let's talk for a minute about what is going on
right now. There are all of these balid initiatives. Do
you think that they will get enacted?
Speaker 5 (28:08):
I do. I mean the ones that pass Every time
I talk about this. It's the results of the ballot
initiatives were complicated because while the abortion rights side, you know,
succeeded in seven of the ten states where abortion was
on the ballot, they failed in Florida. And that's not
because it wasn't popular in Florida. It's because in Florida
you needed sixty percent, which is really hard for anything.
(28:30):
But Florida was just far and away the most important
state for this, just because of like how big this
state is and it's the third most populous state. Just
a ton of abortions, especially before the six week ban
took effect, just a ton of abortions happened there. It
was for a long time this like oasis of abortion
(28:50):
access in the South, which now we have, you know,
strict bands blanketing the whole region. So it was really,
really really important for abortion rights advocates, Like that state
was sort of the like the crown jewel of the
ballot initiatives, and it didn't pass there. So I think
it is really hard to know where to go from here.
I mean, for abortion rights advocates, these ballot measures, they're
(29:13):
very excited about the prospect of the battle measures, but
they don't solve the issue in every state because in
different states it's harder to get it on or even
impossible to get it on. I mean Texas, Like it's
just that it would never happen in Texas, and it's
not this sort of cure al that abortion rights advocates
are really hoping for, right, Like.
Speaker 2 (29:34):
What does the abortion landscape look like now?
Speaker 1 (29:36):
If you are a woman who gets pregnant in one
of these states, say South Carolina, where can you go?
Where are the few sort of free states still?
Speaker 5 (29:50):
Well? I think what the reality for women in these
states with strict bands is that this landscape looks like
the internet more than traveling to well, I don't know
that I can say more than traveling to other states,
but what so many people are doing now is going
online and ordering pills. And that is a thing that
(30:10):
the Trump administration could get in the way of. It's
unclear whether they're going to make a move to do that,
but they could. But in terms of like where there
is access, I mean, for somebody in Florida, the nearest
clinic is going to be North Carolina, which is you know,
if you're in Miami. I don't know off the top
of my head, but that is a really, really, really
(30:31):
long drive. When I visited, I went to a Florida
clinic right after the band took a fact in the spring,
and they weren't talking about driving. They were talking about flying,
like they just it's not a realistic drive for people
to make and but for a lot of the women
that I was speaking to, it just you know, many
of them had never been on a plane. Like the
(30:52):
idea that they would just you know, get on a
plane and somehow leave their families and get childcare and
all the things that you have to do to go
on a trip was just you know, even the money aside,
it just wasn't realistic.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
These women will be okay with the abortion pills until
they're not.
Speaker 5 (31:08):
Yeah, I mean the anti abortion side has identified pills
as the target, right. You know, they know that this
is happening. They know that many pills are getting to
people in vand states through websites. You Know what I
heard consistently for you know, a year plus before the
election was then this is from the anti abortion side,
(31:31):
we're not going to see anything until the election. They
didn't want to really crack down before the election because
they knew that this issue was very popular. But now,
you know, I just had a piece out last week
that was about you know what all of the anti
abortion groups are planning, particularly like the statewide once there's
there's a very active group in Texas called Texas Right
(31:51):
to Life that's the biggest anti abortion group there. They
have really a reputation for you know, trying like particularly
aggressive and creative ways to like crack down on things
and really you know, set the bar for the rest
of the country, you know, when it comes to anti
abortion crackdown measures, and they are ready are they are
planning you know, several new lawsuits that we're going to
(32:13):
see early in the new year. They are trying to
find plaintiffs. They're looking specifically for like male partners of
women who had abortions that are upset. So I do
think you're going to see a wave of like attempts
to crack down on pills getting into band states.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Your body, my choice, right, I mean, ultimately that's what
we're talking about, right.
Speaker 5 (32:35):
I think that they recognize that these men are their
best option for pursuing some of these lawsuits, and they
are recruiting them. They are going to like anti abortion
crisis pregnancy centers, and they are looking for, you know,
people that are close to a woman who had an
(32:57):
abortion and who are angry about it.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
Ask about the women who can't get pre natal care,
Like what's happening to women not getting dncs?
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Because I know you wrote about that, and that is
just horrifying.
Speaker 5 (33:09):
Yeah, I think that everybody should be watching the maternal
mortality committees. So every state has a committee mostly medical experts.
Usually it's about twenty and they get together and they
review cases of maternal deaths and they are looking to
really dig in and see what went wrong and was
(33:30):
this preventable? And these committees they, for various reasons, they
operate on about a two year lag And so we
are just now at the point when these committees are
starting to review cases that may have been affected by
the fall of Row and all of these new bands.
And so what I am watching for now is, you know,
obviously there have been some incredible reporting from Pro Publica
(33:54):
on you know, individual cases of women who have died.
The question though, that I think everyone is wondering, is like,
how much is that happening? How often is that happening?
What is the big picture there? And these maternal mortality
committees they are where we will get that big picture.
That is something to watch for, I think in the
coming months.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
Yeah, we're seeing more and more of that. So talk
to us for a minute about how we're seeing Republicans
kind of mess with that, right isn't there some way
in which Republicans are trying to make it so they're
not reviewing the data as quickly.
Speaker 5 (34:27):
Yeah, well, I just had a story yesterday about in Texas,
which is the biggest state with a strict abortion man.
It was the first state to enact as strict abortion man.
So it's really important for getting a big picture of
what's happening, like just state by state.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Because their ban also started a year before.
Speaker 5 (34:45):
Exactly nine months before, and so it just gives us
like more perspective than really any other state. And so
that's the one that I've been watching most closely. And
the committee was told recently that this is what I
recorded yesterday. They were told recent that they would be
skipping over the years twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three,
(35:06):
which you know, the first two years that the abortion
van was in effect. You know, they said that they
were doing this to be more contemporaneous, is what they said. Basically,
they see their charge, as you know, examining cases in
a timely manner so that it can inform the recommendations
that they give to policymakers. And they were saying, you know,
(35:27):
we just feel we're on too much of a delay,
so it doesn't allow us to provide timely recommendations, and
that is why we are changing this. I spoke with
several members of the committee who you know, all spoke
anonymously that we're really concerned about this because, you know,
they they see as we all do, that those years
are really important to examine because they're the first two
(35:50):
full years that this like new policy, this huge new
policy that affects maternal health is taking effect. And by
skipping them, like you're you know, they they were very
concerned that they were going to miss deaths and the
deaths you know that resulted from abortion bands, and that
was very concerning to them.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Yeah, exactly, It's unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (36:11):
So what are you watching now?
Speaker 5 (36:13):
I will definitely be watching these maternal mortality committees, but
I also think that it's important to watch a couple
of key agencies and then the Trump administration, particularly the
Department of Justice, the Department of Health and Human Services
HHS was actually the one, it really is the agency
that the anti abortion groups were most you know, have
(36:34):
been most focused on. Was Trump has done all of
these gymnastics to back away from abortion. They have been
later focused on who he appoints to lead HHS and
what's so they've been really you know, fighting hard. They
were fighting hard to get him to pick somebody who
was anti abortion and also have anti abortion under secretaries
(36:57):
as well. That's not how that played out. RFK is
you know, obviously a very complicated figure. But you know,
he has expressed support for abortion rights, like he is
pro choice, and so that is not the person, right, well,
theorectly right.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
He's also pro raw milk, but yes, continue.
Speaker 5 (37:15):
But when it comes to this issue, he has you know,
publicly expressed that he is very in supportive abortion rights.
So that obviously wasn't the person that they wanted. And
then to add on to that, we had, you know,
Roger Severino, who wrote the HHS and abortion related chapter
of Project twenty twenty five. A lot of there was
a big campaign, and I think a lot of people
(37:37):
expected that he would be appointed as an under secretary
in HHS, and it just came out that he is
not being selected for that. So that was another blow
to the anti abortion movement. So I sort of watching
that with interest play out because I do think that
that is you know, potentially the Trump administratortion saying, like,
we recognize that people are very upset about this issue,
(38:00):
not going to do anything about it right now at least,
but I think it's just important. I think it's an
important thing to keep an eye on. Is who he
has leading those agencies.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
Yeah, I'll say, and I think that we are in
this bizarre, bizarre moment in American history.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Thank you, thank you, thank you. I hope you will
come back.
Speaker 5 (38:17):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 4 (38:21):
No moment full so, Molly, my moment of fuckery here
is that Cash Bttel is already saying that as the
director of the FBI, of the nation's pre eminent law
enforcement organization, that he is going to use the power
of the FBI to punish people that he doesn't like
and that Donald Trump doesn't like, and that have that
(38:41):
we're quote unquote very mean to Donald Trump. And so
the odd thing about our country right now, in my mind,
is that this is being taken as a sort of
normal activity. This is being seen as kind of like,
this is what they get to do because Trump won
the election. I find that more than a little bit
disturbing and were a little bit troubling, and I find
(39:03):
it fascinating that a lot of our media friends are
pretty much normalizing this one too. There's a sense of like, oh, well,
you know that's Trump. Trump won. I guess, so here
we are. I think Patel is a is a separate
level of shit that's worse than, worse than in consequence
than a lot of these other possible appointments that Trump's
talking about.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
So I'm going to for my moment of fuck Graham,
going to disagree with you.
Speaker 4 (39:28):
Wow, Okay, see how it is.
Speaker 1 (39:30):
I think that for sure, Trump is an autocrat, ran
as an autocrat, probably would say he was an autocrat
and a candidate, we couldn't normalize him for sure because
he was running on a completely non democratic platform. But
now that he is president, we have to cover him,
and that doesn't mean.
Speaker 4 (39:50):
Normal I'm what he's saying, we don't cover him.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Right, But I'm just saying, like the idea, I feel
like the millions of people voted for him, and that
is in itself a kind of normalization, like it or not.
And so I do think like that is why when
we cover him, we have to be so focused on
norms and institutions and the real damage as opposed to
(40:14):
the astatic damage.
Speaker 4 (40:16):
Yeah, look, I get that, I get that, But I
do think you can't ignore the potential presence of a
administration that is overtly dedicated to punishing its enemies.
Speaker 2 (40:27):
Yeah, for sure, I think.
Speaker 4 (40:28):
You got You've got to keep that, You've got to
keep that sort of top of mind about what the
what the consequences are of the consequences of ignoring that,
I think are are high order bad as I like
to say I have.
Speaker 2 (40:40):
I feel like we're not going to be able to
ignore it.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
Rick, personally and professionally, we are now, No, we are not.
Speaker 2 (40:47):
Rick Wilson, Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday to 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.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
Thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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