January 26, 2025 • 41 mins
The Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson examines Trump’s first week back in office. Bloomberg’s Davey Alba and Leon Yin detail how Trump’s outreach to YouTubers helped him win the presidency.
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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 Lindsey Graham says Donald Trump technically
violated the law by firing over a dozen Inspectors General.
We have such a great show for you today. The
Linked Project's own Rick Wilson stops by to talk about
(00:23):
Trump's first week in office. Then we'll talk to Bloomberg's
Davy Alba and Leon Yan about how Trump's speaking to
YouTubers helped Trump win the presidency.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
But first the news my Trump's first week. We'll have
concluded by the time everyone listens to this and this
IRS thing he's doing, there's a lot of stupid going on,
but this feels really stupid.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Republicans going to war with the IRS is something this
party is like obsessed with, and it's part of it
is because Biden hired a bunch of new IRS a gens.
So now he's saying he might terminate the contract of
thousands of RS workers, reviving debunk claims that the agency
had hired eighty eight thousand enforcement agents to go after
(01:11):
taxpayers in the past few years. Again, look, this is
this project twenty twenty five, thing like a war on
the federal government, trying to make it so useless that
you know, it just no longer works. This is the
whittle it down so it's small, so small you can
drown in a boutub and this fits that quite well.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
So last week there was a large debate over hand
gestures and one Elon musk. A lot of people pointed
out that there was a lot of evidence of why
he would do that hand gesture, and it seems he's
just poured a little more fuel on the fire.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Elon gave a speech he was zoomed into a speech
actually listened to some of it for the AfD, which
is the far right Nazi party, and he and the
chairman of Israel's official Holocaust Memorial accused Elon of insulting
(02:09):
the victims of Nazism and engineering Germany's democratic future. After
the billionaire addressed this rally and basically he's said so
he spoke to the AfD, the alternative for deutsch Land.
He said, and here's the quote. It's worth sort of
thinking about. There is too much focus on past guilt
and we need to move beyond that. He said to
(02:31):
the rally, it's just like clear where this is going.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
And if you think.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
About how this is a person who made a hand gesture,
he made it twice that certainly seems like it could
connect to a certain worldview, and then speaks at a
rally for a group that has a certain worldview and
(02:57):
then tells that group not feel bad about the Holocaust. Perhaps,
perhaps it just when everything points to a certain worldview,
one has to wonder if the person who is musing
about that worldview actually has that worldview.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
When they have to, at least once a night, at
some ungodly hour of the night, reply to some person
with a Nazi thing in their timeline about something, it
just feels a little strange. So, speaking of the first buddy,
doge get into work in the first eighty hours, before
it even started, we got rid of a vak ramas swami.
(03:39):
And now they say that they have really done some cutting.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
They announce results from its first eighty hours of work,
and they are you'll be shocked to hear a little
behind schedule. It's canceled approximately four hundred and twenty million
dollars worth of current or impending government contracts. Who even
knows what they are as well as two leads. According
to Business Insider's calculation, that amounts to canceling one hundred
(04:04):
and twenty six million dollars worth of contracts per day.
If the group works at that pace for all of
the five hundred and thirty days between January twentieth, twenty
twenty five and Doge's target date of July fourth, twenty
twenty six, it will cancel about sixty seven billion in
(04:25):
contracts each year. That would end up being three percent
of Musk's original goal of slashing two trillion from the
federal budget or his seven percent of his paradomn goal
of one trillion. Look, man, the man, he knows what
he's doing, and obviously all of us are the problem.
(04:45):
We shall see. Stay tuned, stay tuned, or don't.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
My favorite is that, of course, because it's Elon and
his sick offense, that they have to make it as
stupid meme and make it the number four to twenty
as a marijuana reference, because that's what we're he on
with here now. So in news that I really really
don't like, Montana Republicans now have a bill that would
charge parents of trans kids with child abuse.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
This was always where this is going No one should
be surprised by this. But it's the fifth time in
three years Montana State Senator John Fuller has introduced legislation
targeting transgender youth. It's the fifth time, right that he's
done this. The state Supreme Court overturned a similar law
sponsored by Fuller in twenty twenty three. And we know
(05:31):
there are gop thing tanks that print up these laws,
that write them for state legislatures. They give them to
these legislators and try to get them to keep putting
them on the floor. So on Wednesday, January twenty second,
Senate Bill one hundred and sixty four would criminalize gender
(05:54):
firm and care such as surgery, as puberty blockers, and
hormone replacement therapy for trans kids. You know how many
people is this actually? One hundred people? How many people
in Montana have a trans kid? One hundred fifty forty.
I mean, remember the idea here is to make it
(06:14):
seem like it's a lot more people than it does.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, when you look at the population demographics of Fontana,
I'm betting that we may even be overestimated.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
So all right. Rick Wilson is the founder of the
Lincoln project in the host of the enemy's list. Welcome back,
Rick Wilson.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Oh, he junk fast. I'm delighted to be back with you.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
So are you still very sick?
Speaker 3 (06:38):
No, I'm through it now. My voice is still a
little bit raspy.
Speaker 5 (06:41):
But man, if you could avoid getting what I call
the Portland flu, avoid it, because I was out there
for meetings, and everyone that was at the meeting who
lived there, and everyone who went on the trip got it.
And it's taken two and a half weeks and it's
been subpar, no fun.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
Yeah, that sounds bad.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
It's been the first if Trump as eggs are now
much cheaper away.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Ukraine was resolved within minutes of day one day.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Look, and as we're recording this, we're having the great
news that Donald Trump has imposed twenty five percent sanctions
on all goods coming in from Colombia.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
But tell them why Oh, because they.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Wouldn't allow him to land planes full of deportees. The
secondary issue of it was they wouldn't tell the Colombians
who was on the plane. They just said, Nope, were
landing a plane there, we're taking them back. They're coming
back to you. They didn't know if they were Guatemalans,
if they were Mexican, if they were Colombian, if they
were Venezuelan. They had no idea. So they said no,
(07:41):
as a sovereign nation has the right to do. Dommy
was extremely angry about that. So he puts twenty five
percent sanctions on today, and he says they'll go up
to fifty percent within a.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
Week if they won't take more.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Right, So here's the thing. Enjoy your non existent eggs
with your with your thirty dollars cup of Starbucks this week,
because that's what's going to happen. He is going to
raise the prices for every person who buys drinks coffee
in this country. Luckily, no one drinks coffee in America.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
So one of the things I want to point out here,
it's historically one of the big problems with mass deportation.
This has been true with every president, Democrat, Republican, and
it's also been true with dictators and other people who
wanted to rid their country of ethnic groups they don't like.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
Is that there's no country that will take them.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
And it doesn't matter who they is, right like, it
can be Jews in Germany, it can be Palestinians when
countries try to get rid of a group of immigrants,
they tend to have the very problem.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
That Donald Trump is having.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
So the question is, and I think this is a
real question, is what does Donald Trump do now?
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Well, look, Trump's in a position right now where he
politically had to co out and do the performative splashy,
I'm sending them all back thing for his base. That's
one of the few things they understand. You know, those
are words and actions they understand. Did they go back
or did they not go back? They did they do
(09:20):
this or did they not do this? Well, it turns
out that political impulse to do this, as they always
do in every culture that tries this, ends up with
massive unintended consequences. Now in America, the consequences are somewhat different.
They're they're somewhat centered more on the economic axis, and
so you are going to see a spike in inflation,
(09:43):
pressure in food, in construction, in energy production, in all
these areas where folks from other countries come to our
country to work hard and pay taxes, and Donald Trump
wants to throw them all out, and a lot of
them are just stay at home now. They're just like Nope,
not going to work, going to sit this one out
and see what happens. He's at a really tough spot
(10:03):
right now.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
It's not clear that he's deported more people, right, Like,
this first week was a lot of it was theater, right,
Like you had doctor phil embedded.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
You know, built an immigration expert, doctor Ville, Chicago.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Well, but the point is, right, the point is not
to get real coverage. The point is to get the
kind of propaganda which Trump like loves.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Right, that's right, that's right, And.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
So the goal is to show his people that he's
doing what he wants. But we've talked about this before, Right,
Obama deported more people than Trump did in his first term.
Obama deported twice as many people as Trump did. Now,
part of that was because Obama was quite a bit
more efficient, and part of that was because you know,
(10:47):
he just wasn't so liberal in some ways. And that's
not a criticism because obviously it worked for him.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
But the thing is.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
That I've been struck by were he got he set through,
even though McConnell voted against it, I think that's meaningful.
I don't think that any of these people are like,
know how the vote count is going to go. I mean,
I think somehow they told Tillis that if he didn't
vote for heg Seth, blah blah blah blah blah. God
(11:16):
knows what they told him. I think you have a
real chance now that there are three Republican senators who
you could lose on a cash battel, and then you
only need one.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Mores every day passes Molly Trump's power wings and heg
Seth was a big lift. And I heard from a
couple of folks in the Senate side, one Republican staff
or one Democratic staffer that I knew pretty well, both
of them independently of one another, had the same take,
which was we gave him heg Seth. It's going to
be a lot harder for Tulsi. It's going to be
(11:49):
a lot harder for RFK particularly.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
But Tulsi is.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
A meaningless job. I mean, Will it's a sort of
a fake job. I mean, it's real, but it's also vague.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
Right, But go on, Yeah, but you don't want Tulca Gabbard.
And I think the serious people inside of the inside
of the administration, and there are you know, at the
Susie Wiles sort of tier, they're going to listen I
think more closely on this. And look, there's a reason
Trump wanted hecseeth and put Markers down for hegseth. It's
(12:20):
that Fox News chemistry. And he really believes that the
Defense Department is going to be a centerpiece of his
anti immigration strategy, of his invasion of Canada or Greenland
or wherever the hell he gets up his ass and
decides to do one morning. I think there are some
senators who are feeling shaky. I think they do understand. Again,
this is Donald Trump's very best week. He is at
(12:42):
forty seven percent approval, which is about where he always is.
He never gets much higher, he never gets much lower.
He got lower during COVID.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
He's going to get a lot lower.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
I mean he's going to get a lot lower.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
When people figure out that he's not going to make
anything cheaper. I think that that is not going to
be great for him.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
I truly believe we're in a moment right now where
Donald Trump has a you know, I've started the Golden age.
And if it's not a golden age, because that's a
pretty clear thing, that's a pretty simple bright line test.
Is it a Golden age or not. Are things better
or worse? Is the price of eggs up or down?
And frankly, the price of eggs is not going down.
(13:20):
Is gas up or down? It's not down. Are the
things that he promises people even viable, even imaginable, and
they're really not. It's going to be a lot harder
for them to bullshit themselves a week from now or
ten days from hour, two months from now on the
real outcomes of what Trump has promised. This is a
(13:41):
guy who has always been able to distract his base
and move on to the next thing and the next
thing and the next thing. And in some ways, you know,
right now, the nomination fights for the next few weeks
are still going to have static in the in the
system effect. People are going to be watching RFK and
Cash Patel and all this their stuff. But when it
gets down to governing, when you get down to having
(14:02):
to do things like, you know, do another cr and
pass the tax bill he wants, and pass an immigration
you know system that he wants, and do all these
things that are going to require the White House to
do more than write performative press releases and executive orders.
I think it becomes more complicated, and I think he
has a much much a substance of chance of persuading
(14:22):
people that the only thing stopping me is, you know,
Mitch McConnell wouldn't vote for Pete hegg Seth or whatever.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
No, I definitely think they squandered a lot of goodwill
on Pete hagg Seth. And again there's just the optics
of having a Defense secretary who was a tie break vote.
I think there's no historical precedent for that.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Zero, No, none. I have worked with one and consulted
for another one, and known four of the Defense secretaries
in my lifetime in some capacity. And they had to
cash a lot of checks, They had to burn a
lot of favors for Pete hegg Sith. He was not qualified.
They knew it. Even some of their lobbying behind the
scenes was don't worry, he'll have smart people around him.
(15:03):
To members of the Senate, don't worry, he'll be taking
guidance from Donald directly.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
And oh well, that makes everyone feel better.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
What could possibly go rock?
Speaker 1 (15:13):
It is interesting to watch right now because you know,
Trump has this kind of he's pretty interested in, like
a lot of stuff that the American people had no
buy in for so I'm thinking about things like the
one I'm thinking about the most is more with Greenland,
right conquering the Panama Canal, Like, what's the play there?
(15:38):
I mean, does he think voters will forget about that?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
I think that Donald Trump is no longer kidding about
those things. They may have started out as a joke.
They may have started out as a Trump sort of trollish,
prankish whatever, but I actually think he really believes that
stuff now. I actually think he really thinks of some
sort of American imperium, at least in the Western hemisphere.
And the fuck is that? How do you think it
(16:02):
ends up us trying to invade Greenland? And we're not
going to buy Greenland. The Danes aren't going to sell
Greenland to Donald Trump.
Speaker 6 (16:08):
There are a.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Number of people who don't want that to happen, including
the people of Greenland.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Correct this idea that we're going to seize the Panama
Canal in some way. I was around for the last
time we invaded Panama. It was pretty simple then, it
was pretty easy, or we were going to stick around.
This is something where he is essentially saying we're going
to at the minimum make Panama an American territory of something.
It's a sovereign nation. These things are not as like
a lot of things with Trump. They're not as easy
(16:36):
as they look like in his brain or on his
Twitter or on his true social feed. And I think
all of these things cost him political capital, and the
silliness of it cost him political capital.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Yeah, I mean it seems ridiculous. So let's talk about
what's on the docket.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
Now. What do you think Democrats should be doing right now?
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Well, they should be trying to make viral videos about
Tunis sandwiches. Obviously, yes, this is I'm making it.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Let people talk about this. We're not talking about this.
This leaked conversation from inside a meeting where supposedly they
were musing about a viral anything that is that's restricted
on this podcast.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
So go on that.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Sort of thing of like trying to say, be funny, haha,
make a funny meme. No stop.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
I want to point out that, like the people who
instructed Harris and Hillary Clinton and Biden were all super
timid and cautious and terrified of their people doing their
own tweets, doing their own videos, doing their own anything.
I mean, the Biden world, he didn't do that many interviews.
He didn't do his own social He was the least
(17:50):
accessible president ever, and I am starting to suspect that may.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
Not have served him.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
It did not, It did not.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
I would rather more of them out there than less.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
I'd rather see clumsy authenticity. Then when someone says, we're
bringing in a social media consultant right over.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Focused group nightmare they put out there that didn't connect
with anyone.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Right, that is never an outcome that ends well anymore.
The lack of authenticity is detectable and immediate and powerful.
And if you don't fix it quickly with the Democrats,
Trump will be seen as flawed but authentic.
Speaker 4 (18:30):
Right, Well, that's what happened, right.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Yeah, We've got to live in the world as it is,
not as we want it to be. And that's what happened, right.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
I mean, I'm definitely seeing Democrats doing videos. They seem good,
I mean, narrating what's happening. If they don't kind of
get that out there, I wonder who does.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Look, they need to do the high and the low.
They need to do the stake and the sizzle. And
part of this is going to be if you're going
to be the opposition to Donald Trump. You have to
oppose him. So I get it. The most powerful thing
in Washington, and I know they're Polsters and their focus
group people like they just want us to get along there.
(19:12):
They want us to all cooperate. And again, if Donald
Trump was President Ted Cruz or President Mike Lee or
President Tom Tillis or whomever, that would be perfectly acceptable
and ordinary and explicable. But every time you get in
the trough with this pig, you come up covered in
pig shit. This is not the kind of relationship that
(19:38):
presidents and their counterparts have traditionally had. So we want
to give him a little bit of the shitty things
he wants to do. Is that the way we're going
to do this thing. I disagree with that approach because
the voters, they have told us kind of clearly now,
they are not looking for the Democrats at this point
to come out and offer seven thousand page policy proposals.
(20:01):
They are looking for God save us, they are looking
for people who can be engaging and contemporary.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
But I also think Democrats have a bigger problem, which
is there isn't much in the mainstream media left, So
if they don't narrate what's happening.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
I'm not sure.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
Who does the collapse of the mainstream media. As as
somebody joked here the day, It's like at some point
Doug Balloon at a New York Times pitch pot, it
stopped being just ironic, it started being descriptive. And you
know the Washington Post. We're seeing it at the LA Times,
We're seeing it at CNN, We're seeing it. The networks
are all saying things, you know, with a couple of exceptions. Obviously,
(20:39):
they're taking what I consider, in my opinion to be
the wrong lesson of Trump, and that wrong lesson is
that he won a sweeping landslide and we have to
now accommodate his bullshit. I mean, the job of journalism,
to my mind, at least the last time I checked
before all this was not to comfort the comfortable, but
to afflict the afflicted. I fucked that up somehow.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
But you know, right, I know you mean though, And.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Lawrence O'Donnell pointed out today one of those first press
conferences in the Oval office, they weren't yelling over each other,
they weren't screaming over each other. They weren't asking about
his mental acuity when he was saying stupid things or
weird things, or things that didn't seem logical. It was
I won't say bending the knee, but there are a
lot of journalists right now who are kind of smug
(21:22):
about the moment we're in. I think they believe that
Trump does represent some kind of alteration in a permanent
sense of the American polity, and I think they're covering
him in a way that reflects that belief.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Rick Wilson, d v Alba, and Leon Yen are reporters
at Bloomberg. Welcome, Too Fast Politics. Excellent Bloomberg team. We
have two out of four of.
Speaker 6 (21:51):
You right out of let's see, oh gosh, five.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Now, Davy and Leon, while come to both of you.
Speaker 6 (22:01):
Thanks for having us, Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Whoever wants to go first, I'm going to let you
guys decide amongst yourselves. Explain to us about this investigation,
which basically answers the question should there be a liberal
Joe Rogan. What this piece does is an interesting investigation
of how male conservative YouTubers helped each other. So explain
(22:25):
to us, Davey, why don't you start by explaining us
how you got to this piece.
Speaker 6 (22:30):
Yeah, we know that these podcasters are extremely popular and
influential and increasingly started to have a role in politics.
You know, I think the scenes from the inauguration weekend
where Joe Rogan was in the Capitol rotunda as Trump
(22:51):
was being sworn in, really speaks to that and symbolizes
it so perfectly, while you know, someone like Ron DeSantis,
who's a public and luminary, was confined to overflow. So
we know that these podcasters are extremely influential and that
they are increasingly involved in politics. We also know that
(23:15):
they are influential among young men, not for politics, but
just for speaking about pop culture and you know, sort
of influencer beef, online gambling, pranks, all those sorts of
topics that seemingly don't have anything to do with politics.
But in watching you know, over two thousand videos, we
(23:38):
found that these podcasters sandwich political topics among some of
these seemingly apolitical discussions, and that as the election neared,
the frequency of political messages increased and there was a
real push to get the audience to go out and vote.
(24:01):
And you know, you can't exactly say that there was
you know, this is a causative thing that these podcasters
caused the election to it to be one for Trump.
But I think we can say that these podcasters are
extremely influential. We know that this election swung hard for Trump,
for young men especially. You know, it's there are some
(24:24):
statistics that say that this is the biggest swing among
that demographic in the last two decades. And we wanted
to investigate what exactly is the draw of these podcasters,
what do they talk about, how did they start to
get into politics, and what will their role be now
that Trump is in power? And I think that that
(24:47):
is something that will continue to watch and that we
expect that, you know, the grievances that they talk about
on these podcasts will be transformed to policy and that
could have lasting effects even beyond Trump's term.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
So, Leon, there's a sort of interesting synchronicity to these
podcasts and each other.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
Can you explain that does?
Speaker 7 (25:09):
Yeah? I mean, first and foremost, like these channels, they're
all they're men who create content primarily for other men,
right Like, their identity as men is so central to
their messaging and their audience. A lot of what they
discuss is kind of about the you know, social hierarchy
of where where men are in America, and you know,
(25:29):
given what's going on with the economy, a lot of
young people feel like they don't have the opportunities that
they're promised, Like where's my American dream?
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Right?
Speaker 7 (25:37):
Why are other people getting you know, advantages when I'm not?
And so so much of what is discussed kind of
puts that right in the core about you know, like
how do we get here? Is it fair? And so
oftentimes when they talk about these politics, it's all about
the social order, right. A lot of it is about,
you know, what is masculinity in this era? Right, Like
what does it mean to be a man? What are
(25:58):
like where what happened to traditional gender roles? And that
inevitably lends itself to so many other topics like immigration, right,
like why are immigrants allowed to get in this country
to take jobs that you know I should be having.
Why are we talking about transgender people so much? I
don't know any transgender people. They seem to have an
advantage in sports. Children are seemingly transitioning in an alarming rate,
(26:18):
like something is clearly going on. And then often that
conversation lends itself to be like, well, it's probably because
of the political establishment, the media establishment, the medical establishment,
right Like, in addition to the centering the American man
in the narrative, it's also extremely anti establishment, and the
establishment is what is is kind of viewed as a
(26:41):
source of problems. And by tuney and join the team,
you are anti establishment. Who is the most anti established
man there is? It is Donald Trump, and so inevitably
the votes kind of led to him. But it didn't
start that way. You know, we saw that RFK and
Vek Ramaswami other you know, Republican candidates made the rounds,
right besides Trump. RFK was booked in six or seven
(27:02):
of the shows of the nine that we looked at,
but he didn't garner that many views. And then when
he turned to join the Trump administration, a lot of
that kind of following join too, and so a sources
kind of referred to this as like salting the earth,
where these candidates made the rounds. You know, Jade Vance
showed up as well, and then eventually Donald Trump, and
so the talking points we saw were salted, and so
(27:23):
were the political pundits and candidates that would follow to
and then Trump eventually, and then they repeat the exact
same talking points on these political topics about the election
was stolen. You know, the pandemic is in the vaccine
are used to control the public and to tell you
what to do and to profit from that.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
It goes on on, Davie, can you explain to us
sort of what the landscape looks like, who's sort of
the biggest and who are sort of more and how
they communicate with each other.
Speaker 6 (27:49):
Yeah, it's really interesting when you start looking at the
guest networks of these folks, and just to list out
who we're talking about, we looked at the podcasters and
streamer Aiden Ross, Andrew Schultz, the Neelk Boys, Logan, Paul
Joe Rogan, Lex Friedman, Patrick Bett, David Sean Ryan and
(28:09):
Theo Vaughn and all of these podcasters and streamers had
Trump on as a guest in the months leading to
the election. So we started there and you know, once
you start watching, you start to see the same names repeated.
Dana White, the CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship UFC, is.
Speaker 4 (28:32):
A friend of the shows.
Speaker 6 (28:33):
He's often invoked rfks as well. And you know there
are these friends of the shows, but there's also who
are the guests who draw in the most number of views,
and when you start to look at that, I was
pretty surprised that Andrew Tait was up there right after
(28:54):
Donald Trump in drawing views. He appeared on three podcasts
and he has eighty million views in total. He is
someone who has been banned from YouTube to be clear,
for you know, his hateful rhetoric and you know he's
he's currently under investigation by Romanian officials for human trafficking.
(29:17):
He's he's been kicked off a lot of platforms, but
there's a policy loophole on YouTube that allows him to
be a guest. So he is the number two guest
on these shows. The next few sort of guests by
viewership include Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk, and Shane Gillis, who's
a comedian. Jadie Vance is up there, Ben Shapiro. We
(29:39):
have the full list in our GitHub. If people want
to go and look at that list, it's available there.
But yeah, I think that what we showed is how
these podcasters network with each other, invite the same people on.
You know, inevitably, the guests have their spiel and message
(30:01):
and that is repeated throughout this network, and then it
really takes hold among their audiences.
Speaker 7 (30:09):
A lot of these folks are the comedians, their Internet superstars, right,
their streamers, and you know, many of them have their
origins reality TV. So everyone is sort of coming from
this like kind of idea of like spectacle and clashing
right of personalities, and YouTube has always rewarded that kind
of behavior, right, Like the most viral things on YouTube.
(30:31):
I mean take a Logan Paul for example, right, Like
Logan Paul, he's a vine star, right, he moved to YouTube.
There's that controversy when he was in Japan. He was
live streaming in this forest and they found someone at
their own life, and you know, they upload on YouTube
and it went gangbusters and then I think it was removed.
But there's this long history of spectacle here. I mean
the knelt Boys that you know, they had become or
(30:54):
more openly right wing, you know, before they're kind of
just about partying, you know, partying pranks like they gave
Tucker Carl and a giants in container that I think
a helicopter flew in, right, And so they are all
these really viral moments. And the nature of much of
this content, it's unedited, it's hours long, and so inevitably
they do cover politics, right, but they cover in the
same way where it's kind of like spectacle, right, like
(31:16):
what's outrageous? And I think that that really lends itself
to why I think this works so well in this
kind of content, because politics is just a piece of it,
but by making it a piece and not the primary,
actually arguably becomes a better vehicle for the message, even
if that's not their intention necessarily, which we'll never know.
Speaker 6 (31:34):
I would also add that I think something that was
surprising to me as we looked at this network was
that you might think of a character like Andrew Tait
as someone who is sort of in the far right,
extreme spectrum of politics, and I think what we've shown
here is that that is not true. He is pretty mainstream.
(31:56):
You know, all of these podcasts are mainstream, and we've
sort of been calling it the new mainstream media because
just the viewership and influence.
Speaker 4 (32:06):
And isn't it much bigger than cable news.
Speaker 6 (32:08):
Yes, we had looked at some numbers that showed that
the most popular channel on Election night was Fox News,
and Nielsen has them at drawing in around ten million
viewers on Election night, and Trump's episode alone drew in
one hundred million plus views over the inauguration weekend when
(32:31):
Spotify and youtubeer holding events in DC. Someone from Spotify
said that it was their biggest episode ever on podcasts
on the platform. So the reach and influence of this
network is really really something.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Just say more about this idea that this media complex
is made up of reality television actors.
Speaker 6 (32:54):
Donald Trump is a reality TV president in so many ways. Well,
his star began to rise with shows like The Apprentice,
and this really fits I think this, this this network
really fits in with that. As Leon was talking about
spectacle and you know, these outrageous moments, this is the
(33:15):
kind of thing that the audience is really looking for
and are really sticking to these podcasts for so I
think that as they became such a key vehicle for
political messages ahead of the election, you know, we expect
that Trump will continue to turn to them. We have
(33:38):
a source who told us that he expects Trump to
treat them as an alternative press core and that we
will continue to see millions of Americans receive their messages.
The news, the you know, what they learn will be
tied to these podcasts and how they talk about issue
(34:00):
is It's an incredibly powerful way for Trump to build
support for his political agenda.
Speaker 7 (34:07):
Many of the kind of hosts they say they're independent
or you know, many of them like don't outright say
that they're Trump and many, maybe some of them didn't
vote for Trump. It's it's very likely that happening because
they kind of are operating and kind of like what's spectacular?
What's the w right, Like what's the most epic they
could do? Getting Trump on was pretty epic and anti establishment?
(34:28):
But now because he has the ultimate position again, what
now he's no longer the underdog, right, he's you know,
the establishment, so his establishment what happens now? Right? I
mean that one of the things that strikes me is
that a lot of the messaging is anti war. You know,
a lot of the messagings like young men like you
don't want to go to war, right, Like we got to.
Speaker 4 (34:47):
Stop spending money in wars, which is true.
Speaker 7 (34:48):
But now Trump is talking about you know, seasoned Greenland
and the golf and like that sounds a lot like
war to me. You know, So, like what happens when
the reality sets in that the kind of selling points
you know, deteriorate, Like we just don't know, but that's
something that I'm watching closely.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
So this is a continual argument I have with Democrats.
It's like they could have gone on these podcasts. I mean,
Bernie has gone on Joe Rogan, and Rogan invited Harris
and the Milk Boys. I mean, these podcasters. Maybe some
of them are super ideological, but as you're talking, a
lot of them are not. And they could have gone
(35:27):
on these podcasts and they chose not to.
Speaker 6 (35:30):
Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, you know what, Yes,
Democrats have definitely been on these podcasts. Bernie Sanders is
when you mentioned she was also on THEO Vaughn and
spoke at length there. John Fetterman has kind of made
the rounds on these podcasts too. It seemed like Harris's
strategy ahead of the election was It's worth saying she
(35:53):
did go on some podcasts such as Call Her Daddy.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
But I mean Rogan, Milk Boys, Theovon, I mean to
appeal to that group. And I love Alex Cooper. I
think she's a genius, but it's a different audience. I mean,
that's the thing that I am so struck by. You
don't get in front of these people unless you go
on their shows.
Speaker 6 (36:14):
Right, Yes, and you have to meet them somewhat on
their terms. Trump traveled to Austin, Texas. I believe to
do the Joe Rogan podcast, and you have to agree
that you will do like an hour's long interview.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
For three hours.
Speaker 6 (36:30):
Yeah. Absolutely. Some of the podcasts we listened to were
three plus hours long and no topic off limits, you
know that sort of thing. And we'll probably look back
on this and try to understand, like, was this missed
opportunity for the Democrat.
Speaker 4 (36:48):
We don't have to look back. It was. Thank you
guys so much. Appreciate you both. I'm sorry to cut
you off, but we're out of time.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Please keep going and come back when you have another
investigation like this.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
So interesting things our pleasure.
Speaker 7 (37:00):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 6 (37:01):
Absolutely, Yeah, we'd be happy to.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
A moment fuck.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
Hey, so Molly, it's good to be back with you.
Are we doing fuckery today?
Speaker 4 (37:11):
Yes, let's talk about our moment of fuckery.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
I think that the moment of fuckery here is firing
either fifteen or seventeen inspector eighteen. Now what the body
count keeps rising? Inspector generals? On Friday Night? This generation's
Friday Night massacre.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Trump cites changing priorities, so inspector generals. It's actually sort
of interesting. It's a post Nixonian anti corruption thing put
in place for obvious reasons after the last corrupt Republican
president to have these inspector generals in each branch of
(37:51):
the federal government, and their job is to root a corruption,
to hold the agency accountable.
Speaker 3 (37:59):
Inspector rules and again, yes, they were codified in the
post Watergate environment. Inspector generals have existed in governments for
generations in America, they were codified and protected in such
a way, especially in the post Trump era of Trump one,
where before you fire an inspector general, Congress must be
given thirty days notice. You may have noticed they were
(38:21):
fired on day five a not thirty five. What does
it tell you? It tells you Trump does not want
any kind of oversight function in any government department. He
wants his own people to be able to run roughshots.
So if Cash Patel decides one day, hey, I'm going
to send Rick Wilson and Molly Jong fast and to
get moo, he doesn't want an inspector general in there
(38:42):
who goes in and says, hey, Champ, that's against the law.
You can't do that, and I have to issue a
public report. Yeah, he wants his people to be protected
from oversight and scrutiny.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Michael Horowitz, the DOJ's inspector General, has not been fired.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
You know.
Speaker 4 (39:00):
Interesting, just something to think about.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
It is interesting.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
We're not going to speculate because we don't want to
get sued, but it's just something to think about. Interesting
that some people are getting fired and not other people.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Well, I think one of the things you've have to
watch for here, along with a lot of other things
he's trying to do with these executive orders, is they're
going to be legal problems for the administration, who they
do not want to believe that their courts and their
judges will will do anything against Trump. But there are
some bright line, black letter legal questions here that are
(39:33):
not going to be easily waved away on the spectro generals,
on birthrate, citizenship, and a lot of things both constitutional
and legislative and statutory requirements that don't go away just
because Donald Trump's fat ass is city in the oval
office again.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
And the interesting thing in my mind is Trump has
immunity forever and ever for everything. But you know who
doesn't Everyone around him everybody out, so Trump feels even
more embolden, and that's going to lead to I think
a lot of people getting in trouble in a way
(40:08):
that they might not have had he not have that
same kind of broad sweeping at immun today.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Yes, and he'll be saying to them, Oh, shut up,
just do it, I'll pardon you. I think that's not
really the same. I think that's not really the same
level of certainty that people want when they're working for
the president of the United States and potentially going to
jail for breaking the law.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Well, I just think we've seen people around Trump be
very loyal and ultimately end him in jail.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
Well, you know, Roger Stone, Paul Mannifort, a certain ex
army general, a whole bunch of other people, Gates, all
these people that were around Trump in the first administration
ran into a legal buzz sauce, and he pardoned them
to protect himself from their testimony and from sending them
to prison for long, long hauls. And he pardoned the
January sixth idiots because he wants a shock troop army
(40:59):
out there, people who have already been proven to be
willing to do violence for him, that he can pardon
again if they do bad things.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
So pretty interesting stuff. Thank you, Rick Wilson.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
As always, looking forward to being with you again next time.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
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.
Speaker 4 (41:33):
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 Lindsey Graham says Donald Trump technically
violated the law by firing over a dozen Inspectors General.
We have such a great show for you today. The
Linked Project's own Rick Wilson stops by to talk about
(00:23):
Trump's first week in office. Then we'll talk to Bloomberg's
Davy Alba and Leon Yan about how Trump's speaking to
YouTubers helped Trump win the presidency.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
But first the news my Trump's first week. We'll have
concluded by the time everyone listens to this and this
IRS thing he's doing, there's a lot of stupid going on,
but this feels really stupid.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
Republicans going to war with the IRS is something this
party is like obsessed with, and it's part of it
is because Biden hired a bunch of new IRS a gens.
So now he's saying he might terminate the contract of
thousands of RS workers, reviving debunk claims that the agency
had hired eighty eight thousand enforcement agents to go after
(01:11):
taxpayers in the past few years. Again, look, this is
this project twenty twenty five, thing like a war on
the federal government, trying to make it so useless that
you know, it just no longer works. This is the
whittle it down so it's small, so small you can
drown in a boutub and this fits that quite well.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
So last week there was a large debate over hand
gestures and one Elon musk. A lot of people pointed
out that there was a lot of evidence of why
he would do that hand gesture, and it seems he's
just poured a little more fuel on the fire.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Elon gave a speech he was zoomed into a speech
actually listened to some of it for the AfD, which
is the far right Nazi party, and he and the
chairman of Israel's official Holocaust Memorial accused Elon of insulting
(02:09):
the victims of Nazism and engineering Germany's democratic future. After
the billionaire addressed this rally and basically he's said so
he spoke to the AfD, the alternative for deutsch Land.
He said, and here's the quote. It's worth sort of
thinking about. There is too much focus on past guilt
and we need to move beyond that. He said to
(02:31):
the rally, it's just like clear where this is going.
Speaker 4 (02:35):
And if you think.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
About how this is a person who made a hand gesture,
he made it twice that certainly seems like it could
connect to a certain worldview, and then speaks at a
rally for a group that has a certain worldview and
(02:57):
then tells that group not feel bad about the Holocaust. Perhaps,
perhaps it just when everything points to a certain worldview,
one has to wonder if the person who is musing
about that worldview actually has that worldview.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
When they have to, at least once a night, at
some ungodly hour of the night, reply to some person
with a Nazi thing in their timeline about something, it
just feels a little strange. So, speaking of the first buddy,
doge get into work in the first eighty hours, before
it even started, we got rid of a vak ramas swami.
(03:39):
And now they say that they have really done some cutting.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
They announce results from its first eighty hours of work,
and they are you'll be shocked to hear a little
behind schedule. It's canceled approximately four hundred and twenty million
dollars worth of current or impending government contracts. Who even
knows what they are as well as two leads. According
to Business Insider's calculation, that amounts to canceling one hundred
(04:04):
and twenty six million dollars worth of contracts per day.
If the group works at that pace for all of
the five hundred and thirty days between January twentieth, twenty
twenty five and Doge's target date of July fourth, twenty
twenty six, it will cancel about sixty seven billion in
(04:25):
contracts each year. That would end up being three percent
of Musk's original goal of slashing two trillion from the
federal budget or his seven percent of his paradomn goal
of one trillion. Look, man, the man, he knows what
he's doing, and obviously all of us are the problem.
(04:45):
We shall see. Stay tuned, stay tuned, or don't.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
My favorite is that, of course, because it's Elon and
his sick offense, that they have to make it as
stupid meme and make it the number four to twenty
as a marijuana reference, because that's what we're he on
with here now. So in news that I really really
don't like, Montana Republicans now have a bill that would
charge parents of trans kids with child abuse.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
This was always where this is going No one should
be surprised by this. But it's the fifth time in
three years Montana State Senator John Fuller has introduced legislation
targeting transgender youth. It's the fifth time, right that he's
done this. The state Supreme Court overturned a similar law
sponsored by Fuller in twenty twenty three. And we know
(05:31):
there are gop thing tanks that print up these laws,
that write them for state legislatures. They give them to
these legislators and try to get them to keep putting
them on the floor. So on Wednesday, January twenty second,
Senate Bill one hundred and sixty four would criminalize gender
(05:54):
firm and care such as surgery, as puberty blockers, and
hormone replacement therapy for trans kids. You know how many
people is this actually? One hundred people? How many people
in Montana have a trans kid? One hundred fifty forty.
I mean, remember the idea here is to make it
(06:14):
seem like it's a lot more people than it does.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, when you look at the population demographics of Fontana,
I'm betting that we may even be overestimated.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
So all right. Rick Wilson is the founder of the
Lincoln project in the host of the enemy's list. Welcome back,
Rick Wilson.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Oh, he junk fast. I'm delighted to be back with you.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
So are you still very sick?
Speaker 3 (06:38):
No, I'm through it now. My voice is still a
little bit raspy.
Speaker 5 (06:41):
But man, if you could avoid getting what I call
the Portland flu, avoid it, because I was out there
for meetings, and everyone that was at the meeting who
lived there, and everyone who went on the trip got it.
And it's taken two and a half weeks and it's
been subpar, no fun.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
Yeah, that sounds bad.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
It's been the first if Trump as eggs are now
much cheaper away.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Ukraine was resolved within minutes of day one day.
Speaker 4 (07:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Look, and as we're recording this, we're having the great
news that Donald Trump has imposed twenty five percent sanctions
on all goods coming in from Colombia.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
But tell them why Oh, because they.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Wouldn't allow him to land planes full of deportees. The
secondary issue of it was they wouldn't tell the Colombians
who was on the plane. They just said, Nope, were
landing a plane there, we're taking them back. They're coming
back to you. They didn't know if they were Guatemalans,
if they were Mexican, if they were Colombian, if they
were Venezuelan. They had no idea. So they said no,
(07:41):
as a sovereign nation has the right to do. Dommy
was extremely angry about that. So he puts twenty five
percent sanctions on today, and he says they'll go up
to fifty percent within a.
Speaker 4 (07:50):
Week if they won't take more.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
Right, So here's the thing. Enjoy your non existent eggs
with your with your thirty dollars cup of Starbucks this week,
because that's what's going to happen. He is going to
raise the prices for every person who buys drinks coffee
in this country. Luckily, no one drinks coffee in America.
Speaker 1 (08:10):
So one of the things I want to point out here,
it's historically one of the big problems with mass deportation.
This has been true with every president, Democrat, Republican, and
it's also been true with dictators and other people who
wanted to rid their country of ethnic groups they don't like.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
Is that there's no country that will take them.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
And it doesn't matter who they is, right like, it
can be Jews in Germany, it can be Palestinians when
countries try to get rid of a group of immigrants,
they tend to have the very problem.
Speaker 4 (08:50):
That Donald Trump is having.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
So the question is, and I think this is a
real question, is what does Donald Trump do now?
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Well, look, Trump's in a position right now where he
politically had to co out and do the performative splashy,
I'm sending them all back thing for his base. That's
one of the few things they understand. You know, those
are words and actions they understand. Did they go back
or did they not go back? They did they do
(09:20):
this or did they not do this? Well, it turns
out that political impulse to do this, as they always
do in every culture that tries this, ends up with
massive unintended consequences. Now in America, the consequences are somewhat different.
They're they're somewhat centered more on the economic axis, and
so you are going to see a spike in inflation,
(09:43):
pressure in food, in construction, in energy production, in all
these areas where folks from other countries come to our
country to work hard and pay taxes, and Donald Trump
wants to throw them all out, and a lot of
them are just stay at home now. They're just like Nope,
not going to work, going to sit this one out
and see what happens. He's at a really tough spot
(10:03):
right now.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
It's not clear that he's deported more people, right, Like,
this first week was a lot of it was theater, right,
Like you had doctor phil embedded.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
You know, built an immigration expert, doctor Ville, Chicago.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Well, but the point is, right, the point is not
to get real coverage. The point is to get the
kind of propaganda which Trump like loves.
Speaker 3 (10:25):
Right, that's right, that's right, And.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
So the goal is to show his people that he's
doing what he wants. But we've talked about this before, Right,
Obama deported more people than Trump did in his first term.
Obama deported twice as many people as Trump did. Now,
part of that was because Obama was quite a bit
more efficient, and part of that was because you know,
(10:47):
he just wasn't so liberal in some ways. And that's
not a criticism because obviously it worked for him.
Speaker 4 (10:54):
But the thing is.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
That I've been struck by were he got he set through,
even though McConnell voted against it, I think that's meaningful.
I don't think that any of these people are like,
know how the vote count is going to go. I mean,
I think somehow they told Tillis that if he didn't
vote for heg Seth, blah blah blah blah blah. God
(11:16):
knows what they told him. I think you have a
real chance now that there are three Republican senators who
you could lose on a cash battel, and then you
only need one.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
Mores every day passes Molly Trump's power wings and heg
Seth was a big lift. And I heard from a
couple of folks in the Senate side, one Republican staff
or one Democratic staffer that I knew pretty well, both
of them independently of one another, had the same take,
which was we gave him heg Seth. It's going to
be a lot harder for Tulsi. It's going to be
(11:49):
a lot harder for RFK particularly.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
But Tulsi is.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
A meaningless job. I mean, Will it's a sort of
a fake job. I mean, it's real, but it's also vague.
Speaker 3 (11:59):
Right, But go on, Yeah, but you don't want Tulca Gabbard.
And I think the serious people inside of the inside
of the administration, and there are you know, at the
Susie Wiles sort of tier, they're going to listen I
think more closely on this. And look, there's a reason
Trump wanted hecseeth and put Markers down for hegseth. It's
(12:20):
that Fox News chemistry. And he really believes that the
Defense Department is going to be a centerpiece of his
anti immigration strategy, of his invasion of Canada or Greenland
or wherever the hell he gets up his ass and
decides to do one morning. I think there are some
senators who are feeling shaky. I think they do understand. Again,
this is Donald Trump's very best week. He is at
(12:42):
forty seven percent approval, which is about where he always is.
He never gets much higher, he never gets much lower.
He got lower during COVID.
Speaker 4 (12:49):
He's going to get a lot lower.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
I mean he's going to get a lot lower.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
When people figure out that he's not going to make
anything cheaper. I think that that is not going to
be great for him.
Speaker 3 (12:59):
I truly believe we're in a moment right now where
Donald Trump has a you know, I've started the Golden age.
And if it's not a golden age, because that's a
pretty clear thing, that's a pretty simple bright line test.
Is it a Golden age or not. Are things better
or worse? Is the price of eggs up or down?
And frankly, the price of eggs is not going down.
(13:20):
Is gas up or down? It's not down. Are the
things that he promises people even viable, even imaginable, and
they're really not. It's going to be a lot harder
for them to bullshit themselves a week from now or
ten days from hour, two months from now on the
real outcomes of what Trump has promised. This is a
(13:41):
guy who has always been able to distract his base
and move on to the next thing and the next
thing and the next thing. And in some ways, you know,
right now, the nomination fights for the next few weeks
are still going to have static in the in the
system effect. People are going to be watching RFK and
Cash Patel and all this their stuff. But when it
gets down to governing, when you get down to having
(14:02):
to do things like, you know, do another cr and
pass the tax bill he wants, and pass an immigration
you know system that he wants, and do all these
things that are going to require the White House to
do more than write performative press releases and executive orders.
I think it becomes more complicated, and I think he
has a much much a substance of chance of persuading
(14:22):
people that the only thing stopping me is, you know,
Mitch McConnell wouldn't vote for Pete hegg Seth or whatever.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
No, I definitely think they squandered a lot of goodwill
on Pete hagg Seth. And again there's just the optics
of having a Defense secretary who was a tie break vote.
I think there's no historical precedent for that.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Zero, No, none. I have worked with one and consulted
for another one, and known four of the Defense secretaries
in my lifetime in some capacity. And they had to
cash a lot of checks, They had to burn a
lot of favors for Pete hegg Sith. He was not qualified.
They knew it. Even some of their lobbying behind the
scenes was don't worry, he'll have smart people around him.
(15:03):
To members of the Senate, don't worry, he'll be taking
guidance from Donald directly.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
And oh well, that makes everyone feel better.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
What could possibly go rock?
Speaker 1 (15:13):
It is interesting to watch right now because you know,
Trump has this kind of he's pretty interested in, like
a lot of stuff that the American people had no
buy in for so I'm thinking about things like the
one I'm thinking about the most is more with Greenland,
right conquering the Panama Canal, Like, what's the play there?
(15:38):
I mean, does he think voters will forget about that?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
I think that Donald Trump is no longer kidding about
those things. They may have started out as a joke.
They may have started out as a Trump sort of trollish,
prankish whatever, but I actually think he really believes that
stuff now. I actually think he really thinks of some
sort of American imperium, at least in the Western hemisphere.
And the fuck is that? How do you think it
(16:02):
ends up us trying to invade Greenland? And we're not
going to buy Greenland. The Danes aren't going to sell
Greenland to Donald Trump.
Speaker 6 (16:08):
There are a.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Number of people who don't want that to happen, including
the people of Greenland.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Correct this idea that we're going to seize the Panama
Canal in some way. I was around for the last
time we invaded Panama. It was pretty simple then, it
was pretty easy, or we were going to stick around.
This is something where he is essentially saying we're going
to at the minimum make Panama an American territory of something.
It's a sovereign nation. These things are not as like
a lot of things with Trump. They're not as easy
(16:36):
as they look like in his brain or on his
Twitter or on his true social feed. And I think
all of these things cost him political capital, and the
silliness of it cost him political capital.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Yeah, I mean it seems ridiculous. So let's talk about
what's on the docket.
Speaker 4 (16:53):
Now. What do you think Democrats should be doing right now?
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Well, they should be trying to make viral videos about
Tunis sandwiches. Obviously, yes, this is I'm making it.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Let people talk about this. We're not talking about this.
This leaked conversation from inside a meeting where supposedly they
were musing about a viral anything that is that's restricted
on this podcast.
Speaker 4 (17:19):
So go on that.
Speaker 3 (17:20):
Sort of thing of like trying to say, be funny, haha,
make a funny meme. No stop.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
I want to point out that, like the people who
instructed Harris and Hillary Clinton and Biden were all super
timid and cautious and terrified of their people doing their
own tweets, doing their own videos, doing their own anything.
I mean, the Biden world, he didn't do that many interviews.
He didn't do his own social He was the least
(17:50):
accessible president ever, and I am starting to suspect that may.
Speaker 4 (17:55):
Not have served him.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
It did not, It did not.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
I would rather more of them out there than less.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
I'd rather see clumsy authenticity. Then when someone says, we're
bringing in a social media consultant right over.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
Focused group nightmare they put out there that didn't connect
with anyone.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Right, that is never an outcome that ends well anymore.
The lack of authenticity is detectable and immediate and powerful.
And if you don't fix it quickly with the Democrats,
Trump will be seen as flawed but authentic.
Speaker 4 (18:30):
Right, Well, that's what happened, right.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Yeah, We've got to live in the world as it is,
not as we want it to be. And that's what happened, right.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
I mean, I'm definitely seeing Democrats doing videos. They seem good,
I mean, narrating what's happening. If they don't kind of
get that out there, I wonder who does.
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Look, they need to do the high and the low.
They need to do the stake and the sizzle. And
part of this is going to be if you're going
to be the opposition to Donald Trump. You have to
oppose him. So I get it. The most powerful thing
in Washington, and I know they're Polsters and their focus
group people like they just want us to get along there.
(19:12):
They want us to all cooperate. And again, if Donald
Trump was President Ted Cruz or President Mike Lee or
President Tom Tillis or whomever, that would be perfectly acceptable
and ordinary and explicable. But every time you get in
the trough with this pig, you come up covered in
pig shit. This is not the kind of relationship that
(19:38):
presidents and their counterparts have traditionally had. So we want
to give him a little bit of the shitty things
he wants to do. Is that the way we're going
to do this thing. I disagree with that approach because
the voters, they have told us kind of clearly now,
they are not looking for the Democrats at this point
to come out and offer seven thousand page policy proposals.
(20:01):
They are looking for God save us, they are looking
for people who can be engaging and contemporary.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
But I also think Democrats have a bigger problem, which
is there isn't much in the mainstream media left, So
if they don't narrate what's happening.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
I'm not sure.
Speaker 3 (20:18):
Who does the collapse of the mainstream media. As as
somebody joked here the day, It's like at some point
Doug Balloon at a New York Times pitch pot, it
stopped being just ironic, it started being descriptive. And you
know the Washington Post. We're seeing it at the LA Times,
We're seeing it at CNN, We're seeing it. The networks
are all saying things, you know, with a couple of exceptions. Obviously,
(20:39):
they're taking what I consider, in my opinion to be
the wrong lesson of Trump, and that wrong lesson is
that he won a sweeping landslide and we have to
now accommodate his bullshit. I mean, the job of journalism,
to my mind, at least the last time I checked
before all this was not to comfort the comfortable, but
to afflict the afflicted. I fucked that up somehow.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
But you know, right, I know you mean though, And.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Lawrence O'Donnell pointed out today one of those first press
conferences in the Oval office, they weren't yelling over each other,
they weren't screaming over each other. They weren't asking about
his mental acuity when he was saying stupid things or
weird things, or things that didn't seem logical. It was
I won't say bending the knee, but there are a
lot of journalists right now who are kind of smug
(21:22):
about the moment we're in. I think they believe that
Trump does represent some kind of alteration in a permanent
sense of the American polity, and I think they're covering
him in a way that reflects that belief.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
Rick Wilson, d v Alba, and Leon Yen are reporters
at Bloomberg. Welcome, Too Fast Politics. Excellent Bloomberg team. We
have two out of four of.
Speaker 6 (21:51):
You right out of let's see, oh gosh, five.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
Now, Davy and Leon, while come to both of you.
Speaker 6 (22:01):
Thanks for having us, Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Whoever wants to go first, I'm going to let you
guys decide amongst yourselves. Explain to us about this investigation,
which basically answers the question should there be a liberal
Joe Rogan. What this piece does is an interesting investigation
of how male conservative YouTubers helped each other. So explain
(22:25):
to us, Davey, why don't you start by explaining us
how you got to this piece.
Speaker 6 (22:30):
Yeah, we know that these podcasters are extremely popular and
influential and increasingly started to have a role in politics.
You know, I think the scenes from the inauguration weekend
where Joe Rogan was in the Capitol rotunda as Trump
(22:51):
was being sworn in, really speaks to that and symbolizes
it so perfectly, while you know, someone like Ron DeSantis,
who's a public and luminary, was confined to overflow. So
we know that these podcasters are extremely influential and that
they are increasingly involved in politics. We also know that
(23:15):
they are influential among young men, not for politics, but
just for speaking about pop culture and you know, sort
of influencer beef, online gambling, pranks, all those sorts of
topics that seemingly don't have anything to do with politics.
But in watching you know, over two thousand videos, we
(23:38):
found that these podcasters sandwich political topics among some of
these seemingly apolitical discussions, and that as the election neared,
the frequency of political messages increased and there was a
real push to get the audience to go out and vote.
(24:01):
And you know, you can't exactly say that there was
you know, this is a causative thing that these podcasters
caused the election to it to be one for Trump.
But I think we can say that these podcasters are
extremely influential. We know that this election swung hard for Trump,
for young men especially. You know, it's there are some
(24:24):
statistics that say that this is the biggest swing among
that demographic in the last two decades. And we wanted
to investigate what exactly is the draw of these podcasters,
what do they talk about, how did they start to
get into politics, and what will their role be now
that Trump is in power? And I think that that
(24:47):
is something that will continue to watch and that we
expect that, you know, the grievances that they talk about
on these podcasts will be transformed to policy and that
could have lasting effects even beyond Trump's term.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
So, Leon, there's a sort of interesting synchronicity to these
podcasts and each other.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
Can you explain that does?
Speaker 7 (25:09):
Yeah? I mean, first and foremost, like these channels, they're
all they're men who create content primarily for other men,
right Like, their identity as men is so central to
their messaging and their audience. A lot of what they
discuss is kind of about the you know, social hierarchy
of where where men are in America, and you know,
(25:29):
given what's going on with the economy, a lot of
young people feel like they don't have the opportunities that
they're promised, Like where's my American dream?
Speaker 3 (25:37):
Right?
Speaker 7 (25:37):
Why are other people getting you know, advantages when I'm not?
And so so much of what is discussed kind of
puts that right in the core about you know, like
how do we get here? Is it fair? And so
oftentimes when they talk about these politics, it's all about
the social order, right. A lot of it is about,
you know, what is masculinity in this era? Right, Like
what does it mean to be a man? What are
(25:58):
like where what happened to traditional gender roles? And that
inevitably lends itself to so many other topics like immigration, right,
like why are immigrants allowed to get in this country
to take jobs that you know I should be having.
Why are we talking about transgender people so much? I
don't know any transgender people. They seem to have an
advantage in sports. Children are seemingly transitioning in an alarming rate,
(26:18):
like something is clearly going on. And then often that
conversation lends itself to be like, well, it's probably because
of the political establishment, the media establishment, the medical establishment,
right Like, in addition to the centering the American man
in the narrative, it's also extremely anti establishment, and the
establishment is what is is kind of viewed as a
(26:41):
source of problems. And by tuney and join the team,
you are anti establishment. Who is the most anti established
man there is? It is Donald Trump, and so inevitably
the votes kind of led to him. But it didn't
start that way. You know, we saw that RFK and
Vek Ramaswami other you know, Republican candidates made the rounds,
right besides Trump. RFK was booked in six or seven
(27:02):
of the shows of the nine that we looked at,
but he didn't garner that many views. And then when
he turned to join the Trump administration, a lot of
that kind of following join too, and so a sources
kind of referred to this as like salting the earth,
where these candidates made the rounds. You know, Jade Vance
showed up as well, and then eventually Donald Trump, and
so the talking points we saw were salted, and so
(27:23):
were the political pundits and candidates that would follow to
and then Trump eventually, and then they repeat the exact
same talking points on these political topics about the election
was stolen. You know, the pandemic is in the vaccine
are used to control the public and to tell you
what to do and to profit from that.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
It goes on on, Davie, can you explain to us
sort of what the landscape looks like, who's sort of
the biggest and who are sort of more and how
they communicate with each other.
Speaker 6 (27:49):
Yeah, it's really interesting when you start looking at the
guest networks of these folks, and just to list out
who we're talking about, we looked at the podcasters and
streamer Aiden Ross, Andrew Schultz, the Neelk Boys, Logan, Paul
Joe Rogan, Lex Friedman, Patrick Bett, David Sean Ryan and
(28:09):
Theo Vaughn and all of these podcasters and streamers had
Trump on as a guest in the months leading to
the election. So we started there and you know, once
you start watching, you start to see the same names repeated.
Dana White, the CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship UFC, is.
Speaker 4 (28:32):
A friend of the shows.
Speaker 6 (28:33):
He's often invoked rfks as well. And you know there
are these friends of the shows, but there's also who
are the guests who draw in the most number of views,
and when you start to look at that, I was
pretty surprised that Andrew Tait was up there right after
(28:54):
Donald Trump in drawing views. He appeared on three podcasts
and he has eighty million views in total. He is
someone who has been banned from YouTube to be clear,
for you know, his hateful rhetoric and you know he's
he's currently under investigation by Romanian officials for human trafficking.
(29:17):
He's he's been kicked off a lot of platforms, but
there's a policy loophole on YouTube that allows him to
be a guest. So he is the number two guest
on these shows. The next few sort of guests by
viewership include Tucker Carlson, Elon Musk, and Shane Gillis, who's
a comedian. Jadie Vance is up there, Ben Shapiro. We
(29:39):
have the full list in our GitHub. If people want
to go and look at that list, it's available there.
But yeah, I think that what we showed is how
these podcasters network with each other, invite the same people on.
You know, inevitably, the guests have their spiel and message
(30:01):
and that is repeated throughout this network, and then it
really takes hold among their audiences.
Speaker 7 (30:09):
A lot of these folks are the comedians, their Internet superstars, right,
their streamers, and you know, many of them have their
origins reality TV. So everyone is sort of coming from
this like kind of idea of like spectacle and clashing
right of personalities, and YouTube has always rewarded that kind
of behavior, right, Like the most viral things on YouTube.
(30:31):
I mean take a Logan Paul for example, right, Like
Logan Paul, he's a vine star, right, he moved to YouTube.
There's that controversy when he was in Japan. He was
live streaming in this forest and they found someone at
their own life, and you know, they upload on YouTube
and it went gangbusters and then I think it was removed.
But there's this long history of spectacle here. I mean
the knelt Boys that you know, they had become or
(30:54):
more openly right wing, you know, before they're kind of
just about partying, you know, partying pranks like they gave
Tucker Carl and a giants in container that I think
a helicopter flew in, right, And so they are all
these really viral moments. And the nature of much of
this content, it's unedited, it's hours long, and so inevitably
they do cover politics, right, but they cover in the
same way where it's kind of like spectacle, right, like
(31:16):
what's outrageous? And I think that that really lends itself
to why I think this works so well in this
kind of content, because politics is just a piece of it,
but by making it a piece and not the primary,
actually arguably becomes a better vehicle for the message, even
if that's not their intention necessarily, which we'll never know.
Speaker 6 (31:34):
I would also add that I think something that was
surprising to me as we looked at this network was
that you might think of a character like Andrew Tait
as someone who is sort of in the far right,
extreme spectrum of politics, and I think what we've shown
here is that that is not true. He is pretty mainstream.
(31:56):
You know, all of these podcasts are mainstream, and we've
sort of been calling it the new mainstream media because
just the viewership and influence.
Speaker 4 (32:06):
And isn't it much bigger than cable news.
Speaker 6 (32:08):
Yes, we had looked at some numbers that showed that
the most popular channel on Election night was Fox News,
and Nielsen has them at drawing in around ten million
viewers on Election night, and Trump's episode alone drew in
one hundred million plus views over the inauguration weekend when
(32:31):
Spotify and youtubeer holding events in DC. Someone from Spotify
said that it was their biggest episode ever on podcasts
on the platform. So the reach and influence of this
network is really really something.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Just say more about this idea that this media complex
is made up of reality television actors.
Speaker 6 (32:54):
Donald Trump is a reality TV president in so many ways. Well,
his star began to rise with shows like The Apprentice,
and this really fits I think this, this this network
really fits in with that. As Leon was talking about
spectacle and you know, these outrageous moments, this is the
(33:15):
kind of thing that the audience is really looking for
and are really sticking to these podcasts for so I
think that as they became such a key vehicle for
political messages ahead of the election, you know, we expect
that Trump will continue to turn to them. We have
(33:38):
a source who told us that he expects Trump to
treat them as an alternative press core and that we
will continue to see millions of Americans receive their messages.
The news, the you know, what they learn will be
tied to these podcasts and how they talk about issue
(34:00):
is It's an incredibly powerful way for Trump to build
support for his political agenda.
Speaker 7 (34:07):
Many of the kind of hosts they say they're independent
or you know, many of them like don't outright say
that they're Trump and many, maybe some of them didn't
vote for Trump. It's it's very likely that happening because
they kind of are operating and kind of like what's spectacular?
What's the w right, Like what's the most epic they
could do? Getting Trump on was pretty epic and anti establishment?
(34:28):
But now because he has the ultimate position again, what
now he's no longer the underdog, right, he's you know,
the establishment, so his establishment what happens now? Right? I
mean that one of the things that strikes me is
that a lot of the messaging is anti war. You know,
a lot of the messagings like young men like you
don't want to go to war, right, Like we got to.
Speaker 4 (34:47):
Stop spending money in wars, which is true.
Speaker 7 (34:48):
But now Trump is talking about you know, seasoned Greenland
and the golf and like that sounds a lot like
war to me. You know, So, like what happens when
the reality sets in that the kind of selling points
you know, deteriorate, Like we just don't know, but that's
something that I'm watching closely.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
So this is a continual argument I have with Democrats.
It's like they could have gone on these podcasts. I mean,
Bernie has gone on Joe Rogan, and Rogan invited Harris
and the Milk Boys. I mean, these podcasters. Maybe some
of them are super ideological, but as you're talking, a
lot of them are not. And they could have gone
(35:27):
on these podcasts and they chose not to.
Speaker 6 (35:30):
Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, you know what, Yes,
Democrats have definitely been on these podcasts. Bernie Sanders is
when you mentioned she was also on THEO Vaughn and
spoke at length there. John Fetterman has kind of made
the rounds on these podcasts too. It seemed like Harris's
strategy ahead of the election was It's worth saying she
(35:53):
did go on some podcasts such as Call Her Daddy.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
But I mean Rogan, Milk Boys, Theovon, I mean to
appeal to that group. And I love Alex Cooper. I
think she's a genius, but it's a different audience. I mean,
that's the thing that I am so struck by. You
don't get in front of these people unless you go
on their shows.
Speaker 6 (36:14):
Right, Yes, and you have to meet them somewhat on
their terms. Trump traveled to Austin, Texas. I believe to
do the Joe Rogan podcast, and you have to agree
that you will do like an hour's long interview.
Speaker 4 (36:29):
For three hours.
Speaker 6 (36:30):
Yeah. Absolutely. Some of the podcasts we listened to were
three plus hours long and no topic off limits, you
know that sort of thing. And we'll probably look back
on this and try to understand, like, was this missed
opportunity for the Democrat.
Speaker 4 (36:48):
We don't have to look back. It was. Thank you
guys so much. Appreciate you both. I'm sorry to cut
you off, but we're out of time.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Please keep going and come back when you have another
investigation like this.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
So interesting things our pleasure.
Speaker 7 (37:00):
Thank you so much.
Speaker 6 (37:01):
Absolutely, Yeah, we'd be happy to.
Speaker 4 (37:05):
A moment fuck.
Speaker 3 (37:08):
Hey, so Molly, it's good to be back with you.
Are we doing fuckery today?
Speaker 4 (37:11):
Yes, let's talk about our moment of fuckery.
Speaker 3 (37:15):
I think that the moment of fuckery here is firing
either fifteen or seventeen inspector eighteen. Now what the body
count keeps rising? Inspector generals? On Friday Night? This generation's
Friday Night massacre.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
Trump cites changing priorities, so inspector generals. It's actually sort
of interesting. It's a post Nixonian anti corruption thing put
in place for obvious reasons after the last corrupt Republican
president to have these inspector generals in each branch of
(37:51):
the federal government, and their job is to root a corruption,
to hold the agency accountable.
Speaker 3 (37:59):
Inspector rules and again, yes, they were codified in the
post Watergate environment. Inspector generals have existed in governments for
generations in America, they were codified and protected in such
a way, especially in the post Trump era of Trump one,
where before you fire an inspector general, Congress must be
given thirty days notice. You may have noticed they were
(38:21):
fired on day five a not thirty five. What does
it tell you? It tells you Trump does not want
any kind of oversight function in any government department. He
wants his own people to be able to run roughshots.
So if Cash Patel decides one day, hey, I'm going
to send Rick Wilson and Molly Jong fast and to
get moo, he doesn't want an inspector general in there
(38:42):
who goes in and says, hey, Champ, that's against the law.
You can't do that, and I have to issue a
public report. Yeah, he wants his people to be protected
from oversight and scrutiny.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Michael Horowitz, the DOJ's inspector General, has not been fired.
Speaker 3 (38:59):
You know.
Speaker 4 (39:00):
Interesting, just something to think about.
Speaker 3 (39:02):
It is interesting.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
We're not going to speculate because we don't want to
get sued, but it's just something to think about. Interesting
that some people are getting fired and not other people.
Speaker 3 (39:12):
Well, I think one of the things you've have to
watch for here, along with a lot of other things
he's trying to do with these executive orders, is they're
going to be legal problems for the administration, who they
do not want to believe that their courts and their
judges will will do anything against Trump. But there are
some bright line, black letter legal questions here that are
(39:33):
not going to be easily waved away on the spectro generals,
on birthrate, citizenship, and a lot of things both constitutional
and legislative and statutory requirements that don't go away just
because Donald Trump's fat ass is city in the oval
office again.
Speaker 1 (39:47):
And the interesting thing in my mind is Trump has
immunity forever and ever for everything. But you know who
doesn't Everyone around him everybody out, so Trump feels even
more embolden, and that's going to lead to I think
a lot of people getting in trouble in a way
(40:08):
that they might not have had he not have that
same kind of broad sweeping at immun today.
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Yes, and he'll be saying to them, Oh, shut up,
just do it, I'll pardon you. I think that's not
really the same. I think that's not really the same
level of certainty that people want when they're working for
the president of the United States and potentially going to
jail for breaking the law.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
Well, I just think we've seen people around Trump be
very loyal and ultimately end him in jail.
Speaker 3 (40:36):
Well, you know, Roger Stone, Paul Mannifort, a certain ex
army general, a whole bunch of other people, Gates, all
these people that were around Trump in the first administration
ran into a legal buzz sauce, and he pardoned them
to protect himself from their testimony and from sending them
to prison for long, long hauls. And he pardoned the
January sixth idiots because he wants a shock troop army
(40:59):
out there, people who have already been proven to be
willing to do violence for him, that he can pardon
again if they do bad things.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
So pretty interesting stuff. Thank you, Rick Wilson.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
As always, looking forward to being with you again next time.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
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.
Speaker 4 (41:33):
Thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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