June 17, 2024 • 54 mins
The Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson skewers the Supreme Court's continued descent into insanity. Janelle Stelson details her congressional run in Pennsylvania against Scott Perry. Authors Lisa Lerer and Elisabeth Dias detail their new book, The Fall of Roe: The Rise of a New America.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Mollie John Fast and this is Fast Politics. Well,
we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's
best minds.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
And Lara Trump is trying to assemble one hundred thousand
poll watchers. We have such a great show for you.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Today.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Janelle Stelson drops by to tell us about her congressional
run in Pennsylvania against Scott Perry. That will talk to
Lisa Larra and Elizabeth Dias about their new book, The
Fall of Row The Rise of a New America. But
first we have the host of the Enemy's List, the
Lincoln Projects owned Rick Wilson.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Welcome back, my friend and yours, Rick Wilson. Let's do it,
Rick Wilson, So I want to talk about a little
bit of Trump. Pretty interesting. Andrew Ross orkin today, who
is on squawk Box and writes deal book for the
New York Times, very very smart. Happens to be married
to my agent, who I'm obsessed with, and he said
(00:52):
something interesting. So there's a lot of anxiety in New
York about Trump because besides the fact that he wants
to end American democracy, which none of us really like, oh,
just that a lot of rich people have pivoted to
Trump because he's basically offered to kill all taxes. The
other yesterday he said, or maybe was two days ago,
(01:14):
he said that he was going to end income tax
and just put on a tariff on everything, which is
highly inflationary, completely insane and awesome.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
The math isn't even conceivable for that to work. There
is no math that makes that work ever, ever, in
the history of the universe. That math doesn't work unless
somehow we start importing solid fucking logs of platinum from
another planet and we put a tariff on it.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
But it doesn't work. You can't make it work.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
It's like a nineteenth century view of economics from a
guy who failed economics.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Yes, the fact that Trump doesn't understand economics should be
the world's most unsurprising thing. But anyways, so, a lot
of rich people very excited about Trump because he's offered
to basically do whatever they want in order for him
to win. He told the oil companies that he was
going to make oil great again. He was going to
make sure that they could offshore drill wherever they wanted,
(02:11):
because oil is the future. I mean, I can't believe
he's given up on coal. What a long eight years
it's been Remember when he was so excited about Cole
I'm going to make coal great again. It was Virginia.
It's like, no, honey, it's like you're in an R
plus forty seven. Just you know, you don't have to
make coal gready, and they're going to vote for you anyway.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
The idea of Trump's transactional nature is right in the
faces of America. But these billionaires that are picking Trump
that are going back. Look, you got Steve Schwartzman from
Black Rock.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Who right, who was always going to vote for Trump.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Who was always going to go back to Trump in
the end.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Even like the fact that his like maybe his kids
were like, you can't support him now that he's done insurrection,
and he had like a minute where he was like,
I think insurrection might be too much, and then he
was like, never mind, I'm back.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Yeah, never mind, I'm back.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
And my favorite part of see Schwartzman was like, well,
I'm worried about anti Semitism. I'm like, have you met
Donald Trump's fucking basse.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Dinner with Nick Flints with Nick right for the Jews.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
I'm like, if you haven't noticed yet, Kanye and Nick
flinte is at for dinner, as well as a whole
bunch of these other dipshits around Trump That just blew
me up.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
I was like, what, that's your reasoning.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
But you know what, my guys like Schwartzman, guys like
Bernie Marcus, all these people, they go out into the
world and they say, let's see if I go from
sixteen billion dollars of net worth to fifteen point four,
that's the greatest tragedy in all humanity, and I.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Must stop it. So I will allow Trump to burn
down the world.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
To end American democracy. Yeah, yeah, they use an interesting
rank all could we play this clip from Andrew Ross Sorkin.
Speaker 5 (03:53):
I will say I was surprised. I spoke to a
number of CEOs who I would say walked into the
meeting being lump supporter ish or thinking that they might
be leaning that direction, who said that he was remarkably meandering,
could not keep a straight thought, was all over the map,
and that they was maybe not surprising, but was interesting
(04:17):
to me because these were people who I think might
have been actually predisposed to him, and actually walked out
of the room less predisposed to him, actually predisposed to
thinking this is not necessary. As one person said, this
may not be any different or better than a Biden thought.
If you're thinking that way.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
The only thing I because remember, rich people are very
mad at Joe Biden, and I think we need to
take a minute here to talk about why Joe Biden
has put someone in charge of antitrust who is really
really smart.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
By the way, I just like to point out I
am a Lena kh fanboy.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Right, Lena Khan?
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Why am I b Yes, tell us.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
Why I am a fan of Lina Khan Because I'm
a conservative who believe in free markets and not in
this goddamn kleptocracy that we've established that allows the people
with more lobbyists to win every regulatory fight, and that
allows major companies to destroy their competition while it's still
in the cradle so that they can retain eighty ninety
(05:16):
percent market share. I'm against people who abuse the patent system.
I'm against people who who are engaged in the kabuki
dance of we're just a company that competes in the
market when they own ninety percent of the fucking market. No, no,
no no, and if the market is broken because they've
managed to short circuit it by regulatory capture, by lobbying,
(05:39):
by political favors, by and by manipulating markets.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
That's not a free market.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
I approach this from the right, not as like I
want the government to run everything. No, No, I want
the government to stop giving these corporations everything they want
and giving them monopoly power or oligopoly power in the market.
Speaker 6 (06:00):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
So what I think is important here is that some
rich kleptocrats are very pissed. They went into this meeting
very trump curious. Andrew ross Organ describes their horror at
the level of distracted and also disjointed and also demented
rhetoric from Donald J. Trump. Seventy eight years old today,
(06:24):
Happy birthday, Donald Trump.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
All I can say is at the age of seventy eight,
where I will be eighteen years from now.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Humbo brag.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
I hope I don't feel the same icy hand of
death clenching my heart Donald Trump is now experiencing, because
I have to tell you, I don't think this has
been a good week for the guy. And we joke
about the shark thing, but all the reporting out of
the hearing yesterday and one of my friends got to
read back from a member yesterday who is a Trump supporter,
(06:54):
who said, man, that was awkward.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
That was fucking weird. That was not great.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Someone said it was like a drum uncle.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Yeah, it was like talking to your drunk uncle at
the family reunion. But like I said, a friend of
mine spoke to a member who came back and said,
that was so awkward.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
It was not great.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
And it was a lot of like Trump giving them
political advice, which.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Is people are like, oh, please God, don't make me
do that. Please God, don't make me do that.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
They're like, you should have zoom town halls. Yes, you
should do that. That'll be fun for me.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
What else did they say?
Speaker 4 (07:28):
He was on one of his little little revenge things.
He was going after Jeff Rowe, who ran santruss billion
dollar train wreck of a campaign, and he was going
out all these people, you know, you've got to do
it my way. And there was also a sense that
he was like just crazy, like he's not winning Virginia.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Really in Minnesota.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
It's fabulous to think.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
But I don't wake up in the morning mill you know,
I could worry about any number of things in this campaign.
I don't wake up in the morning going, man, what's
my strategy to beat Trump in Virginia.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Right, I'm looking at the notice in this nonprofit newsroom
that I'm like obsessed with.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
I I love them.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
They're reporting and they said that Trump suggested that only
that abortion only became a complex issue ten years ago,
which is probably when he learned about it. I didn't
know that.
Speaker 5 (08:19):
I just you're telling you me not for the first time.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Right.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
He told if he were in office, he would have
prevented war in Ukraine and also Hamas's attack on October
seventh in Israel. Russian ships off the coast of Cuba
were a particular interest to Trump, earning him a standing
ovation from the only Cuban born lawmaker, Senator Mario Diaz,
(08:43):
who you know. Trump also laid into Jeff Rowe as
a top former strategist for Ron DeSantis' presidential run. Trump
said Roe, who directed millions of dollars to firms he controlled,
well advising disantist as surgery on candidates wallets.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Let's be clear about something.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Jeff row in twenty twenty two was involved in eleven
campaigns that spent a total of one hundred and ten
million dollars, and he got blown the fuck out.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
I like him for that.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
Actually, I think he won one congressional race out of
the whole package. Then he jumped over to do Ron
DeSantis's inside the campaign and the super pack through some
ledger Germaine, which is a word it's under used.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
I don't even know what it means.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
What is a man like sleight of hand.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
His company was representing both the pack and the campaign.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
They're like, we have a firewall. Uh huh, I bet
you do.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
A long story short, as we all know, President DeSantis'
campaign went really really well and as the nominee of
the Republican Party President Santa oh wait he did, and
he got blown the fuck out in Iowa.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Yeah, but he is a terrible, terrible, terrible candidate.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
Oh yeah, for sure. But Jeff Row also there's a
little inside tweak here. He and Jared had this great
relationship for a while, and Jared was trying to bring
Jeff Row in at one point to overcome all of
the Corey Lewandowski, Brad Parscal, Steve Bannon, Yahoo wing ding
weirdos in the situation. But instead the battle was won
(10:11):
by Susie Wiles and Chris Losovita, who I am told
yesterday I was told there was a Trump team call
or zoom. I'm not sure which one it was, but
they were on a call when the news broke about
Trump saying that Milwaukee was a horrible place, and we
were told that was like you could hear a pin
drop on the call, Like, oh fuck, I'm saying, I
(10:38):
want to ask you something about this this weird week.
So the Supreme Court yesterday comes out on Mithra pristone
with a decision that was a setback on the right,
but it was only on standing. So first off, I
wanted to ask you about this kind of sing about this.
Last night I got to ask Molly about this. What
do you think the politics of it mean? And should
people be too happy about this? I don't think they should.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
No. I actually think what's interesting about it, which I
was thinking about last night, was like, I mean, look,
they threw it out on standing. There is no standing
on this, and again it really speaks the Fifth Circuit right.
The fact that the Supreme Court even had to like
look at this for the Circus right exactly, that the
Supreme Court even had to look at something that's crazy
is really like it makes them look good again. We
(11:22):
know from the Supreme Court. They do earlier decisions that
make them look less crazy, and then right before they
go on vacation they dump the real crazy ones. So
expect some crazy shit to go down. This they never
had standing, so I think they'll come back with this.
I mean, one of the things that this Supreme Court
loves to do is to give you a taste of
(11:43):
what's going to happen and then bring it back. Remember
Roberts were done with abortion. They have two abortion cases
this semester, so I think it's very likely we'll see
more on the pills. Look, the pills for them are
the worst, right because you know you can have abortions.
Speaker 4 (11:59):
They make it private, right, they can't stand outside a
clinic and screaming at pregnant women.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
But I think we've already seen an introduction that like
two of the most crazy justices are ready to use
the Commstock Act for whatever they can. And so I
think we know where this is going. Unlike Donald Trump,
who can't keep it in his pants, they understand that
like abortion is a fucking loser for them. And so
while you have like these conferences, say, you know, remember
(12:27):
you had the Southern Baptist Convention saying they're going to
go after IVF next, which is like just the thing
not to say during an election year when Democrats are saying,
you're going to go after IVF next, and Republicans are like,
we don't want to codify it, but you're good, right.
Can you imagine Katie Brett and Ted Cruz are like
cursing the Southern Baptists being like, don't say anything about IVF.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
We got to win the Southern Baptists.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
They gave Democrats a gift yesterday in this campaign that,
as you and I both know, Donald Trump is not
a smart man.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Has incredible political instinct.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
He has a feral sense of cunning and instincts that
are cunning. And that's why Yesterday's like, oh, Bush is
now complicated. Some states are good, some states are not.
He understands how deadly this can be if he fucks
it up, and he's kind of fuck it up. But
this whole thing, I was just curious about your take
on it, because I really think that this was a very,
(13:24):
very very bad week with the Southern Baptist and I
don't want people to get too enthusiastic about this court decision.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Thinking, oh, well, they figured it out. They're not going
to fuck u. Now, they're gonna.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Still yeah, yeah, oh, no question. I think two things.
They are going to fuck you and also they are
definitely coming for IBF.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Yeah, and they're coming for birth control. Let's stop pretending
they're not.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
The goal here is to make it so you can't
have an IUD and you can't have the morning after
pill right now, right there saying right now the position
that is on the sort of starting line. It hasn't
been fully expressed, but right now it's this embryonic personhood idea.
So that means no more IVF. That means no more
(14:08):
IUD because an IUD they consider to be an abortion
because they keep the feetus from implanting. No more morning
after pills. So these are three things they are like
actively ready to go after. Once they get those. By
the way, we will be back in like the eighteen nineties,
like Canada won't be normal. Mexico has legalized abortion, right
(14:31):
one of.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
The largest Catholic countries in the hemisphere is legalized abortion.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Well then, yeah, exactly, but we because the two of
these Catholics are progressive compared to the Evangelicals that we
are being ruled by right now or the evangelicals that
make up the Republican Party, because we are they're not
empower though they're trying to get back from power. I
think it's a real shit show. But I also think
it's we're thinking about this, which is Trump is going
to try to sell this abortion thing. As you know,
(14:56):
one of the greatest tricks that Donald Trump ever pulled
was that he people convinced that he was a moderate
because he had been a Democrat and because he also,
you know, has had all these sexual assault delegations. We thought,
who wasn't gonna you don't know whether your religious extreme is,
But it turns out he is.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
Like I said, I just want people to be cautious
about that whole thing because I'm convinced that this is
basically a Supreme Court headfake, where you know, John Roberts
is trying to play his.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
His home own little big thing. That ain't it, folks,
This Supreme Court.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
We have more decisions today. And the other thing is
it's June fourteenth, so like we're going to have two
weeks of starting some of the really crazy decisions going.
And you know, look, this Supreme Court has one goal.
It's to remake the country in the image of this
very kind of religious, deeply undemocratic, anti government craziness.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
It's absolutely true. I think we're now entering the real
heat of the campaign. We're coming up on the debate,
We're coming up on a lot of moments where people
are going to see what the people are made of.
I don't think Donald Trump is doing well physically. I
don't think he's doing well mentally. I think he is
in much deeper trouble than people believe. That doesn't mean
we get to take any days off. I don't think
this guy is very stable right now. I think the
(16:14):
court cases broke his brain like more than it's usually
been broken.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
And I'm here for that.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
The analogy to nerd out for just a second, this
is like Germany in late nineteen forty three. They know
they're going to lose the war, but that doesn't mean
they're not crazy. And that doesn't mean the fanatic loyalists
around Hitler I mean Trump. But I repeat myself, you
know the fanatics are going to stay fanatic. But I
think they know that the inevitability argument with Trump. They
(16:39):
may work with the billionaire class, but it's not working
more broadly.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Than that right now, Yeah, no, I agree.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
It's Rick Wilson Ram Sunshine.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Spring is here, and I bet you are trying to
look fashionable. So why not pick up some fashionable all
new Fast Politics merchandise. Yes, we just opened a news
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Speaker 2 (17:12):
Janelle Stelson is a candidate in Pennsylvania's tenth congressional district.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Welcome to Fastpolitics to now, thank you a pleasure, Mollie.
So you are running for Congress in Pennsylvania's tenth district.
You are running against Scott Perry. I feel like Scott Perry.
He's a special kind of Republican candidate to be running against.
Speaker 7 (17:32):
Well, and you're very polite.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Explain to us what your district looks like and what
you're doing.
Speaker 6 (17:39):
You know, my district looks a lot like every other
district that wants its needs to be met. For the
past twelve years, our sixth term congressman has been doing
very little to meet those needs. He has mostly been well,
you know, he's kind of dumped in some circles Congressman chaos.
These days down in Washington creating a whole wreaking havoc,
(18:01):
basically meaning in large part is an anarchist obstructionist. He's
the reason this one hundred and eighteenth Congress had at
one point achieved fewer pieces of legislation than at any
time since the Great Depression back in the nineteen thirties.
Thank you, Congressman Perry. That is not exactly meeting my
district's needs. The do nothing Congress, right Amen's sister.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
So explain to us, You're in a very tight district
in Pennsylvania, but we just saw a poll that has
you guys tied. Explain to us how you win in Pennsylvania's.
Speaker 6 (18:36):
Tenth Well, I think how you win is something I've
been practicing for the past thirty eight years, and that's listening,
listening to formally what my viewers had to say were
their issues and concerns, and now listening to what I
hope will be my constituents say and carrying their voices
to the halls of Congress. And that really is why
(18:56):
I got into this race, you know, being on air
as the Trust did nonpartisan voice for the past thirty
eight years, and everybody living rooms is a big deal.
And you know, I went from polling place to polling
place on our primary day, which was back in April,
the end of April, and I won a six way
primary by twenty points against some very good candidates, including
(19:19):
the nominee from last cycle. But what I was saying
is at the polling places, the Republicans were going in
or shaking my hands because they know me from TV,
and some of them would whisper conspiratorially, I'm going to
write you in and so is my husband, and others
were saying, you know, we can't vote for you this time,
but we got you back in November.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Don't worry.
Speaker 6 (19:40):
And so, you know, that's always great to hear, particularly
from Republicans.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Yeah, there are a lot of people on the progressive
side who are mad at Joe Biden. But when you
heard that speech that he gave the D Day's speech,
there were two different ones, but one of them was
an homage to previous president twops spoken on D Day
and have spoken about the importance of American democracy. One
(20:06):
of the people he gave this homage to was Ronald Reagan. Now, politically,
a lot of his policy decisions do not speak to me.
But if you're going to compare Democrats and Republicans, they're
much closer to each other than they are to Mega.
You know what, at I.
Speaker 6 (20:21):
Look at this as American issues. I'm not somebody like
Scott Perry who went to the border a couple months
ago and was grand standing. You know, he flew there
on the taxpayer dime, even though he touts himself as
a fiscal conservative.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
He off no solutions.
Speaker 6 (20:35):
He just pointed fingers of blame, which everybody does when
they head to the southern border. You know, this is
what's wrong with Washington. This is what is wrong with
longtime six term politician, Congressman Scott Perry, Congressman Chaos. He
goes down, he offers no solutions. You know, this is
an American problem, not a Republican or a democratic problem.
(20:57):
We need to secure the border, have a proper amount
of people working there. Unlike Scott Perry, who has voted
to cut funding repeatedly for border security. You know, we
need to look at this problem and if we do
it right, we can be a shining example of democracy
around the world. Let's shore up this deeply broken asylum system.
You know, if people are not deemed to have legitimate
(21:19):
claims to be in this country, send them home expeditiously
and humanity in a humanitarian fashion, get them back to
their native countries. And conversely, the people who do have
legitimate claims to be here, let's move more quickly to
get them assimilated into our communities and work in and
pay in taxes and doing the things everybody wants them
(21:39):
to be doing. This crisis of refugees and asylum seekers
is not getting any easier as the earth becomes less
hospitable after the damage we've done, So we can really
show people how to do this right again, an American problem,
not something that Republicans or Democrats need to be pointing
fingers at the other side all the time. Both parties
(22:01):
have been watching it for years.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
I also think though, that there's not a path right,
Like if you put money into immigration and you have
a path for people for whom they are actually legitimately
seeking asylum, right, if you had judges on the border,
if you could process claims quickly, if you could offer
a real legal path to citizenship, you know, I mean
(22:25):
there are solves here that they're just money that is
not going there.
Speaker 6 (22:30):
Yeah, and Mollie This is but one example, and there
are many. I know, we only have minutes for our
show today, Yeah, but you know, we could probably be
here for a month talking about all the egregious votes
he's taken during his time in office.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
And also Pennsylvania does not share a border with Mexico.
It does not.
Speaker 6 (22:48):
But we're all affected. Again, it's American problem, you know.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Yes, exactly, but I do think that it is like
one of the things that I've been struck by with
this crew. But Scott Perry also doesn't really leave in
an American democracy. Can you talk about these Republicans who
have gone authoritarian?
Speaker 6 (23:05):
Well, a lot of people think that Scott Berry is
just a bridge too far right.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Now.
Speaker 6 (23:11):
You know, the extremest votes he has taken time and
time again that in no way resemble the Republican Party
at all. He's too extreme for the Republicans now as well,
you know, you look at January sixth, he's one of
the architects deeply involved in that day. It is so
disappointing that he's just been put on the House Intelligence Committee,
which of coursees the FBI, which he was under investigation
(23:34):
by the FBI is the agency that seized his phone
because of his deep involvement in January sixth and the
deadly insurrection. So you know, it's almost like the fox
guarding the Henhouse. In terms of the Mall Committee after
eating all the heads. This guy was under investigation, and
now he's going to have oversight over the folks who
(23:56):
are investigating him. It feels deeply broken as an American,
not in a partisan way. It makes me sad, and
it sort of seems like we're seeing a little bit,
you know, these things that the Supreme Court is looking
broken these days. This to me is like Justices Alito
and Clarence Thomas not recusing themselves from January sixth cases.
(24:19):
This is just, you know, somebody has shown you who
they are and shown you why they should not be
involved in whatever structure you're talking about here, we're talking
about the Intel Committee. You know, it's just a very
very bad fit. And when you have must the Republicans
questioning and concerned that he would be on that committee,
you know, shame on Speaker Johnson.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Yeah, I mean, Speaker Johnson really serves at the pleasure
of Donald Trump, right, I mean that's how he got
the job, that's how he keeps the job well.
Speaker 6 (24:47):
As I say, I can only handle one extremist at
a time. I can only handle one election, Dot Denier.
I'm focused on Congressman Perry.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
When you are in this moment and you're talking to
people in Pennsylvania and you live in this very purple district,
what are their concerns, what are they telling you? What
do you hear it?
Speaker 6 (25:06):
Well, again, Mollie, to have all week, after twelve years
of relative inaction, things that should not have been urgent
to attend to have become urgent because of the inaction.
But I'll tell you probably the top three things I
hear a lot of people talking about, for instance, one
of the extreme right fringe votes that he took that
he was the only one in the Pennsylvanian delegation, no
(25:27):
other Republican, no Democrat. He voted not to give medals
to the officers who protected the Capitol, protected his life
on January sixth, and the lives of his colleagues, so
that in a few hours he could walk back into
the chamber and vote to overturn all of our votes.
People don't want to have their votes overturned. They want
(25:49):
to know that their voices are heard in the halls
of Congress, and this is a really big deal. And
then you know he didn't comply with the bipartisan commission
that was investigating what happened January sixth to make sure
it never happens again. You know, he was one of
those He's like, yeah, I'm not talking to them, And
he sought a presidential pardon, which now he says he
didn't seek, but people in the Trump administration said he did.
(26:12):
And if you haven't done anything wrong, I'm not sure
why you have to ask for a pardon, right exactly,
this just me.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
I'll tell you.
Speaker 6 (26:19):
I hear about that. I hear a lot about choice
and women's reproductive rights.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Oh you do, that's good? Oh yeah, it's huge.
Speaker 6 (26:28):
And that is a Republican and a Democratic issue and
every party in between. I was live on the set
back in twenty twenty two when the Supreme Court handed
down the Dobbs decision, overturning Row, and I was put
in the position where I had to look out into
the camera in my best at the time, nonpartisan way
and tell every woman watching that her rights had been
(26:49):
rolled back fifty years.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Were you shocked when it happened?
Speaker 6 (26:53):
I think everybody was kind of shocked. Although we you know,
at what point do you get desensitized because we're living
in a shocking world world. But yes, I mean, and
of course we had an inkling that it was going
to happen when there was a leap several months before.
But something else really important happened that day. The fact
that in many cases, depending on your age, your mother
had more rights than your daughters or your nieces. That's
(27:16):
a pretty big deal. But I went up to the
newsroom afterward and one of my colleagues was sort of
hunched down in the corner. And it's somebody who has
to deal with a lot of trauma every day. He's
the person who sends us out to fires and accidents,
and you know, there's a lot of loss of life
on the news. And I touched his shoulder and I said,
to you, okay, and he looked up at me and
he said, Janelle, you don't know this, but my wife
(27:38):
was raped and if we had not had abortion available
to us, our lives would be ruined. And it's a
very important thing to remember on the campaign trail, you
know that it's not just about women, it's about the
men and the families who love us. And I also
had to seek comment from our local congress people that
evening and in the next couple of days, and Congressman
(27:59):
Perry was basically dancing a jig. He wants a nationwide
abortion ban sponsored the Life at Conception Act has sponsored
that for the past seven years, which would be, you know,
a nationwide abortion band with no exceptions, not for rape,
not for incest, not for the life or help of
the mother. And same thing with IVF. And he keeps
trying to walk this back because he's seen how deeply
(28:21):
unpopular it was after Alabama made its bands on IVF.
And I say, judge a man by his actions, not
by his work.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Yeah. And also I feel like one of the things
that this Life and Conception Act does, besides making it
impossible to get abortions, is it also if this is
taken as it's advertised, it would be the end of
IVF as we know.
Speaker 7 (28:47):
Yeah, it would be.
Speaker 6 (28:48):
With some people try to act as a recent phenomenon.
You know, IVF has been around for forty years. Members
of my family have been conceived by IVF. This is
something that you know, when you're talking to a group
of people, almost to any group.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
It's the kind of thing, you know.
Speaker 6 (29:01):
I do a lot of speak at engagements and you say,
who here has been touched by cancer? Almost every hand
was up. I feel like it's starting to be the
same way with IVF. It's so popular. And again this
drives home the point we should not have politicians involved
in our healthcare decisions. Who wants Scott Perry telling you
when to start a family, how to start a family,
(29:22):
you know, or expand your family. It's just something that
should be between a woman, her doctor and whoever she
brings into the conversation. It's ridiculous and I think, you know, Molly,
and for everybody listening, if guys were the ones who
had the babies, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion,
right of course, I think it's two things. Right, it's
like men controlling the conversation about women's health. But I
(29:45):
also think it's that a lot of us were in
denial that it would go.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
I actually was not. I always thought after they passed
SBA in Texas, I thought, oh, I know where this
is going.
Speaker 7 (29:55):
Oh you were right, and it's not going to stop here.
Speaker 6 (29:58):
Now we're looking at lg BTQ issues, we're looking at
you know, there's an awful lot going on that Scott
Perry is all kinds of in favor of restricting, which
is very funny because he was head of the Freedom Caucus. Honestly,
it should be called the anti Freedom Caucus.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
I think that what is interesting too is that you
do see this sort of belief on the right, like
they are supporting all of these like wildly unpopular ideas
right like contraception. Nobody in the world. It's like pornography,
like these are two things that Americans are just like,
leave us alone. You know. They want the freedom to
(30:35):
read what they want to read, and they want the
freedom to use birth control because we live in the
world where there's birth control now. And these are two
things that the right has in their crosshairs.
Speaker 6 (30:47):
It really is. And I have to say, you know,
there's a cadre of people or a cabal, whatever you
want to call it in congre right now, the obstructionists,
the ones who don't do anything for the people in
their home districts, like Scott Perry. You know, we have
economic issues we should be talking about, but instead we're
just you know, it's like you look at these people,
they're causing so many problems. They're not tending to the
(31:09):
issues their districts care about. And I got to say,
if you look at a Marjorie Taylor Green and think, yes,
she's not for me, she doesn't belong in Congress, there's
not a lot we can do about that. She's in
a solidly Republican district. But I got to tell you,
Scott Perry is the most vulnerable maggot extremist in Congress
right now, and he's getting more vulnerable all the time
(31:31):
as I come after him and our support builds. So
this is really the place, Pennsylvania's tenth district. If you
want to flip the US House blue and get rid
of some of this nonsense, you get rid of Scott Perry,
and you vote me in.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Right. What we've seen with Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren
Vauper too, is that one member of Congress, if it's
one like Scott Perry, who's so ideological and nutty, can
really cause a lot of damage in American democracy.
Speaker 6 (31:57):
Well, you know, Mollie, my estimation of you is rising
by the minute because I see that you're very polite,
because you use the adjective when I am talking to supporters,
whether it's on the phones or knocking doors or just
people come up to me on the streets. They use
a lot saltier language than knife.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
I'm curious. One of the things that causes me a
lot of anxiety is this idea that people are not
getting the real news, that they're getting this kind of
red sludge, that they're getting fake news through TikTok and Instagram.
I mean, how much of your job is sort of
debunking lies or do you feel that people are actually
(32:35):
getting good news through local outlets.
Speaker 7 (32:38):
First of all, you hurt my heart when you talk
about media that way.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Molly up the rights. Well that's why I said, you're
getting good news, good local news.
Speaker 6 (32:48):
Yeah, well, I know there are a lot of other outlets.
In fact, recently we're hearing, you know, about interference by
bots sent by certain countries. And I got to say
another nickname, Congressman CHAOSK. Perry has is Putin's Pennsylvania puppet,
you know, because he's against the funding for Ukraine and
you know a lot of people for them. It's just
(33:09):
a foreign relations situation, which he is, by the way,
on that committee and wreaking habit as well. But it's
also an economic issue here at home. When you can't
get grain out of the port of Odessa in Ukraine,
that's going to cause a lot of problems around the
world in terms of food insecurity and prices. Here at home,
you have people who are struggling. There are a lot
(33:31):
of people who are pinched, and they tell me, you know,
I'm actually having to make decisions about whether I put
food on the table or take my life saving drugs.
And I got to say, here's another point against Scott Perry.
He's the one who voted against the government's ability to
negotiate prescription drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. You know, right
now it's only ten drugs. I'd like to see that
(33:51):
expand if I'm lucky enough to get to Washington. And
I'd like to see the age limits lowered as well,
but he voted against it. Again, this is a guy
who touts himself a fiscal conservative, and it was extrapolated
that the move is going to save taxpayers and a
government about one hundred and twenty billion dollars in fairly
short order, and it will save the average person slash
family about one hundred and fifty dollars a month, so
(34:13):
they don't have to make those tough decisions about whether
to put food on the table or take their drugs.
And you know what, here's the dot dot dot, Mollie.
He did it while he was taking money from Big Pharma.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Of course, I'm not surprised. Thank you, so so so much.
I hope he'll come back.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Molly.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
It was an absolute pleasure.
Speaker 6 (34:33):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
So there and Elizabeth Dias are the authors of the
Fall of Row The Rise of a New America.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Welcome Too Fast Politics, Lisa, Thanks for having me and Elizabeth.
It's great to be here. Fantastic. The book is called
The Fall of Row, the Rise of a New America.
So super interesting. We're talking about this before. Lisa. You
are political reporter, national political reporter. Elizabeth your beat is religion.
(35:05):
How did you find each other to tell the story.
Speaker 7 (35:08):
Well, we both joined the Times around in twenty eighteen,
so we sort of joined at the same time, and
we found that we liked looking at politics through different
but similar lenses, you know, sort of cultural politics, how
politics influences the country, you know, not so much the
data and the Machia nations and the strategy but more
sort of how politics influences people's lives. And we were
(35:31):
both had covered abortion for bits and pieces over our career,
and we did a few stories together on end We
had been watching the encroachment increasingly restrictive bands of course
in the States during the Trump years, and then when
it was oral arguments and Dobbs, which was the case
that would go on to end Row, we were on
the phone together and we were listening and we actually
(35:51):
both remember the moment it happened, which was I don't
know if you remember this in the argument but went
justice Barrett started talking about safe haven boxes, which are
those boxes?
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Yeah? Yeah, and then you explain though to our listeners. Yeah.
Speaker 7 (36:05):
So she was saying, basically, why do you need abortion
when you have these safe haven boxes, which your boxes
by fire stations where a new mother can leave the newborn,
you know, anonymously, and I'll be adopted. And we were
on the phone and one of us said to the other, Oh,
they're going to overturn rop This is it, and someone
needs to be writing this for history. This is a
major major turning moment in like American politics and law
(36:30):
and policy. And we're sure someone must be writing this.
How could someone not be writing this? It doesn't tell
me don't need to write this, And then nobody was
writing it, ed that we were writing it, And there you.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Go, Elizabeth Imian, How did the religion be inform your
experience of this story?
Speaker 8 (36:45):
Well, this is a topic that we really felt you
can't understand it unless you can really see all the
strands of the big picture.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
In just looking at it through lons.
Speaker 8 (36:56):
Of politics leaves out the massive our story of how religion,
especially conservative mostly conservative Christianity, was a driving force in
even getting to this point. I mean, the roots of
the anti abortion movement are deep in the Catholic Church.
Speaker 7 (37:15):
Evangelicals were late to that movement.
Speaker 8 (37:18):
And while yes, abortion is about the procedure itself and
the question of ken a woman and a pregnancy, the
meaning of abortion in American life is just so much bigger.
Right when people are talking about abortion, what we found
that really talking about is what does it mean to
be a woman in America and what are all of
the values that go with that. So unless you kind
(37:42):
of take a look and examine that bigger meaning, the
why right of why this is such a huge issue,
we really only get a partial story It's been a
really fruitful combination because you know, it leads not only
to investigations in areas that have been undercovered, like the
a role of religion in Christianity in overturning Row, but
(38:05):
also it provides a way to understand what's going on
that you just really can't understand where we're going as
a country, the rise of been to America, as we
say in the in the subtitle, without understanding these bigger
cultural and religious parents.
Speaker 7 (38:22):
Right at its core, this is a question abortion, is
a question of where women fit into the national project
of America. And you know, since that famous Abigail Adams quote,
you know where she wrote to John Ams and said,
remember the ladies, like, that question has been unsettled. And
what the ruling in that case showed us is that
it remains unsettled that there is a very active conservative
(38:43):
Christian minority in the country who has one view of
what where a woman fits and what a woman should
be in America, and there's a broad majority that's more
secular that has a diff from view, right. And so
this is really about what does it mean to be
a woman in the amic democracy and more than that,
in the American project as a whole.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
So what do you think, what do you think about
this idea that where does fetal personhood and I like
to call it embryonic personhood because I'm on the opinion side,
Where does that factor into all of this?
Speaker 8 (39:22):
Well, that's really where the anti abortion movement is headed.
I mean, at its core, it's a movement that believes
that a human is a person deserving of rights at conception.
That's a certainly a minority view in America. It's quite
a minority view. And I think for so many years
(39:43):
because the movement was talking about Okay, we have to
overturn row, it's sort of obscured that an ultimate end,
like what an ultimate end of that would be. So
the fallow row was really just the beginning of this
much much bigger goal. I mean, people don't talk a
lot of the more main mainstream anti abortion groups try
(40:05):
are trying to not talk about quote field personhood right now,
especially the.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
Relation until they get into play power, right, so and so.
Speaker 8 (40:13):
But the but what we are seeing is because kind
of the the the edges have been stripped away, right,
that that kind of veil of denial that so many
people had about what was going on and like wood Row,
the very idea that rowe could go away, that that
denial has been shattered. And what we're seeing too is
the anti abortion movement has been changing so much since
(40:36):
the case, and there is an edge that has been
increasingly radicalized also through the Trump movement. Right, things that
seem possible before are now suddenly possible. So they are
openly trying to pursue rights for an embryo as I go.
And you know, we're seeing this be manifested in things
(40:57):
like opposing IDF for example.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Is there a religious component to that? Oh yeah, where
does that come from?
Speaker 7 (41:04):
It's really deep.
Speaker 8 (41:05):
In one set of a Christianity's view about what it
means to be a human person, right, and when this
sort of soul comes into the body, how does all
that work.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
It's deep in.
Speaker 8 (41:16):
Catholic theology that life begins that conception. So not everyone,
of course, who is Catholic or who is Christian.
Speaker 7 (41:25):
Believes that.
Speaker 8 (41:26):
This is where you see a lot of fracturing, but
it's very hard. We really think it's impossible to talk
about what it means like where this movement is going
without understanding those deep roots in one certain Christian worldview.
So what we're seeing now even at the Supreme Court,
(41:48):
all with the Supreme Court, out of these questions of
you know, what does it mean? What might it mean
for America to be a Christian nation? Is democracy on
its own? Or is America a democracy sort of set
within the Kingdom of God? For example? There's a fringe
that is really pushing that. And so it's a major
(42:08):
conflict that extends well beyond just abortion. It's all aspects
and pick your reach in American life.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Right, what did you find when you were reporting this book? Like,
one of the things I'm often surprised by is how
I know a lot of stuff because I just read
all on the same topics again and again and again.
What did you sort of stumble on where you're like, oh, wow.
Speaker 7 (42:31):
Well, so I think there's a very macro answer that question,
and a bunch of micro ones too.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Sure so.
Speaker 7 (42:37):
And the biggest level, like, our book covers a ten
year period which we called the Final Decade of Row.
And we start with that Republican autopsy that was conducted
after around me lost in Obama won re election in
twenty twelve, where Republicans basically said we need to dump
abortion as an issue. This is a loser for us,
and we need to find ways to win more female
(42:58):
voters and voters of color and all of that. We
picked that point because it's the lowest point for the
anti abortion movement, and we charged their rise over the decade.
And this was a story that I had covered, that
I had lived. I covered Romy's campaign, I covered Hillaries campaign,
I covered Button's campaign. You know, I went a million
campaigns in between, and all the politics. But there was
something about putting this all together, that going back and
(43:21):
isolating the moments that were just about this issue and
looking at them as a whole and re reporting them
and getting these additional details that I realized how much
even I, as I covered these issues, had missed, and
how we didn't really have a narrative, a clear narrative
to explain how ro fell. So, you know, I think
when we think about the Republican Party and I write
(43:42):
about the Republican Party, everyone kind of knows what happened there,
what happened with trump Ism and the MAGA movement and
with abortion. You know, there's this simplistic, you know answer,
which is Trump won three Supreme Court justices and the
court change and abortion and Roe fell. But in fact,
the answer is so much bigger, and the strategy by
the anti abortion movement was so much longer and more
(44:03):
detailed than just that. So I think what surprised me
was how there was no narrative around this issue, how
little in a way it had been covered, and how
our book really creates the first narrative that explains to
people how the country got here and how row felt now.
In terms of the smaller details, another thing that we
really wanted to do was dive into the lives of
(44:23):
the people on both sides of this policy and this debate,
who you know, were most active, and really explore their
own lives. So we just learned all these really interesting
personal details about people's families and fertility, you know, their childhoods,
and those were things I really hadn't known. And the
one that I particularly liked was we discovered that Mike
(44:44):
Pence when he was married, it was a secon we
you know, it was a second marriage for Karen Pence's wife,
and so we were looking around to see like at
the time, Mike Pence was Catholic, as was Karen Pens
and they were pretty devoutly Catholic, So we were trying
to see was the first marriage innulled because you know,
obviously divorced round pound in Catholicism. And we actually found
out that the priest who married them shortly after marrying
(45:06):
Mike and Karen Pence came out of the closet and
went on to lead in deep pride. Good for him,
I geah, Yeah, it was kind of a fun little twist.
So Mike and Karen Pence were married who, you know,
such an opponent same sex marriage and rights, were actually
married by gay Price no longer a priest.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Good for them. Elizabeth, What about you? What did you
sort of learn writing this book that you were really
surprised by macro micro whatever.
Speaker 8 (45:33):
Well, everything that Lisa said, I mean, I would add
on to it. I think understanding these deep religious influences
and how all of this happened, even for me, was
pretty powerful. There's, you know, a way to look at this.
Everything that's going on is sort of a story within
a story within a story, and part of that is
(45:56):
why America is changing so much on issues like abortion.
This is happening in a context of rising secularism total,
you know, the de christianization of America, the struggle for that,
the rising backlash within certain conservative Christian circles to that
and what that looks like. It's why you can see both,
like you can have these competing things going on of
(46:19):
the country becoming more secular and also right wing for
conservative Christianity and people trying to express their values. You
know that that really is make America great again for them,
like bringing back so that was that's been fascinating. But
even beyond that, the way that this story of the
(46:40):
Fall of Row fits in for so many of the
people who are working to make it happen into a
story a religion that goes back to a young woman
who likely was a teenager and gave birth to a
baby that they worship as the Son of God.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
Right, these are such.
Speaker 8 (46:59):
Debated storylines and you just can't understand I don't think
the states or what it means will mean in the
future to be a woman in America without understanding this
bigger fight going on between one particular Christian worldview and
another majority view in America that is more pluralistic and
(47:23):
is increasingly secular.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
So it's just part of that.
Speaker 8 (47:26):
We can see in a very specific way through Leonard
Leo the longtime architect right at the Federalist Society, who's
so influential, and picking the judges who would go on
to become former President Trump's Supreme Court picks for him.
The story of why he's so opposed to abortion personally
is deeply rooted in his religious views about suffering and
(47:50):
his own story of his daughter who hads fina bifida
and die and kind of.
Speaker 7 (47:53):
How he dealt religiously with that.
Speaker 8 (47:56):
And we found that actually the day that Row found
it happened on a certain Catholic holy day, the Feast
of the Sacred Heart, which has extreme personal significance to
Leonard Leo's. He had named his daughter after the saint.
The holy day is devoted to It's like.
Speaker 1 (48:15):
The Da Vinci Code, but women suffer instead. Yes, but
go on, I don't mean to boil it down in
such a way, but it's just, you know, I feel
bad for him, but not that bad, But yes, go on,
I was sorry.
Speaker 8 (48:29):
You get at these sort of epic questions of spiritual
versus earthly forces and how power works, and it's just,
I think such a much bigger story. It's very hard
to confront that now, and especially what that means for
you know, the stakes for women, right, that's just very
different ideas about the role of women in society and
(48:51):
family when it comes to sex, marriage, kids, all of it.
You have to kind of spend time exploring that and
seeing what the steaks are.
Speaker 1 (48:59):
Yeah. No, no, it's so interesting and I didn't mean
to make light of it, but I can't help myself
because I grew up in a very non religious Hashold.
One of the things we talked about when we talked
together on Morning Joe was that the left really never
saw this coming. I've talked to other people who've said
this very same thing, which was that so much was
(49:19):
riding on the election of Hillary Clinton, that Planned Parenthood
and a lot of organizations, that there was such a
mass sort of belief that she would be the president
that certain things maybe didn't get the attention they could have.
Speaker 7 (49:33):
Look, I think that's right. I think there was a sense.
You have to remember where the country was in twenty twelve,
twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, the run ups at Clinton's run,
which was you know, it seemed like abortion was this
old fight. It was decided like conservative states at that
time were passing more restrictive laws, But it just didn't
capture the imagination. It wasn't the thing that was driving
(49:56):
like liberal activists. It felt like this thing from like
the boomer moms or grandma's or whatever. It was a
settled issue. Hillary Clinton was widely expected to win and
she was going to expand abortion rights in all of this,
and then of course she lost. And I think part
of what the left was unprepared for is they thought
about this issue in terms of the election cycles and
in terms of winning public opinion. If we destigmatize the proposal,
(50:20):
we get it in as a plot line in movies
like Juno or Gray's Anatomy. If we elect people who
will protect abortion rights, it'll be fine. They'll be forced
to roll back these restrictive laws. As Elizabeth was outlining,
the anti abortion movement is thinking in generations, right, and
they're not thinking about public opinion because they are engaged
in this battle for these like spiritual ideas. So you
(50:43):
believe that you were engaged in a world battle. It
doesn't matter if everyone disagrees with you. So what they
were doing was moving the levers of power everywhere. They
could state legislatures, judicial you know, judge ships, all the
way up to the Supreme Court. So you reach a
point where the left is unable to stop this from
happening because the anti abortion movement controls the system, and
(51:05):
that's the point at which Trump has those three Supreme
Court justices, and by then it's too late. So I
just think like the anti abortion forces were playing chess
and the abortion rights side was playing checkers, and the
skull of how they were looking at this was just
so different. It was asymmetrical in a way, right.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
I mean, I think that's a really important point that
they had this grand plan that the left just didn't
see coming in a certain way.
Speaker 7 (51:29):
And I think, like you were mentioning, you know, you
grew up in a really secular home, Like I think
it can be hard to understand, like you really have
to understand the roots of this thing in the anti
abortion movement. And you know, it's been interesting to see
all this news with the LEO and the recordings and
the flags, and you know, it didn't go unnoticed by
Elizabeth and I that the flag his wife wanted to
(51:51):
raise to push back on the Pride flag was the
flag of the Sacred Heart right, which is that Catholic symbol.
We were talking about so this is a thing that's
very deep for them can be hard, I think for
people who are raised more secularly to wrap their heads
around what that all means. I think it actually helped
us that we were raised in more observant homes, and
(52:11):
so I think that helped us kind of understand a
little bit more and take a wider purview than I
think sometimes people do to this issue, which is necessary.
Speaker 1 (52:19):
Thank you both so much.
Speaker 7 (52:21):
Thank you, ma, thank you for having us.
Speaker 1 (52:25):
No moment fuck so Rick Wilson, Yes, ma'am, do you
have a moment of fuckery?
Speaker 4 (52:32):
I do have a moment of fuckery. My moment of
thuckery is yesterday's ritual humiliation session on Capitol Hill where
Mitch fuck and McConnell, who I have told you guys
a million times loathes and despises Donald Trump with every
fiber of his grotesque little being, went out there and
once again, once again when he has a chance to
(52:55):
break the evil of Trump, and the MAGA movement went
out there. Oh well, support the Norman I'm a party
because olverys. If we don't communist Trams, lesbian celebrity abortionist
will wound.
Speaker 3 (53:08):
I mean God, all.
Speaker 4 (53:09):
Fucking mighty, the guy can't stop himself. And I'm sorry, Mitch,
you're eighty two years old. Go retire, be done. Try
not to make yourself a guy who will end up
with a grave that reeks of piss for all eternity
by supporting this fucking guy.
Speaker 1 (53:26):
Oh yes, I understand the craven desire for power. I
respect the hell out of it. But the photos out
of that meeting yesterday were so cringe well, they just
were so embarrassing, and like, you have this opportunity, even
if the guy did win, you could have salvage the
(53:49):
tiny bit of your dignity by not There were photos
of them actually, and they weren't bowing on purpose. They
were just sort of like, you know, it just looked
like they were bowing right, but it looked like, you know,
painting is from the Renaissance.
Speaker 3 (54:02):
Accidental Renaissance.
Speaker 1 (54:04):
Yeah, accidental.
Speaker 3 (54:05):
That was awful, awful, awful, awful.
Speaker 1 (54:08):
So the accidental Renaissance is our moment of fuck Gray.
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best minds
in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
enjoyed what you've heard, Please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. And again thanks for listening.
Hi, I'm Mollie John Fast and this is Fast Politics. Well,
we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's
best minds.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
And Lara Trump is trying to assemble one hundred thousand
poll watchers. We have such a great show for you.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
Today.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Janelle Stelson drops by to tell us about her congressional
run in Pennsylvania against Scott Perry. That will talk to
Lisa Larra and Elizabeth Dias about their new book, The
Fall of Row The Rise of a New America. But
first we have the host of the Enemy's List, the
Lincoln Projects owned Rick Wilson.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Welcome back, my friend and yours, Rick Wilson. Let's do it,
Rick Wilson, So I want to talk about a little
bit of Trump. Pretty interesting. Andrew Ross orkin today, who
is on squawk Box and writes deal book for the
New York Times, very very smart. Happens to be married
to my agent, who I'm obsessed with, and he said
(00:52):
something interesting. So there's a lot of anxiety in New
York about Trump because besides the fact that he wants
to end American democracy, which none of us really like, oh,
just that a lot of rich people have pivoted to
Trump because he's basically offered to kill all taxes. The
other yesterday he said, or maybe was two days ago,
(01:14):
he said that he was going to end income tax
and just put on a tariff on everything, which is
highly inflationary, completely insane and awesome.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
The math isn't even conceivable for that to work. There
is no math that makes that work ever, ever, in
the history of the universe. That math doesn't work unless
somehow we start importing solid fucking logs of platinum from
another planet and we put a tariff on it.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
But it doesn't work. You can't make it work.
Speaker 4 (01:43):
It's like a nineteenth century view of economics from a
guy who failed economics.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Yes, the fact that Trump doesn't understand economics should be
the world's most unsurprising thing. But anyways, so, a lot
of rich people very excited about Trump because he's offered
to basically do whatever they want in order for him
to win. He told the oil companies that he was
going to make oil great again. He was going to
make sure that they could offshore drill wherever they wanted,
(02:11):
because oil is the future. I mean, I can't believe
he's given up on coal. What a long eight years
it's been Remember when he was so excited about Cole
I'm going to make coal great again. It was Virginia.
It's like, no, honey, it's like you're in an R
plus forty seven. Just you know, you don't have to
make coal gready, and they're going to vote for you anyway.
Speaker 4 (02:31):
The idea of Trump's transactional nature is right in the
faces of America. But these billionaires that are picking Trump
that are going back. Look, you got Steve Schwartzman from
Black Rock.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Who right, who was always going to vote for Trump.
Speaker 3 (02:44):
Who was always going to go back to Trump in
the end.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Even like the fact that his like maybe his kids
were like, you can't support him now that he's done insurrection,
and he had like a minute where he was like,
I think insurrection might be too much, and then he
was like, never mind, I'm back.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Yeah, never mind, I'm back.
Speaker 4 (02:59):
And my favorite part of see Schwartzman was like, well,
I'm worried about anti Semitism. I'm like, have you met
Donald Trump's fucking basse.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Dinner with Nick Flints with Nick right for the Jews.
Speaker 4 (03:12):
I'm like, if you haven't noticed yet, Kanye and Nick
flinte is at for dinner, as well as a whole
bunch of these other dipshits around Trump That just blew
me up.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
I was like, what, that's your reasoning.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
But you know what, my guys like Schwartzman, guys like
Bernie Marcus, all these people, they go out into the
world and they say, let's see if I go from
sixteen billion dollars of net worth to fifteen point four,
that's the greatest tragedy in all humanity, and I.
Speaker 3 (03:41):
Must stop it. So I will allow Trump to burn
down the world.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
To end American democracy. Yeah, yeah, they use an interesting
rank all could we play this clip from Andrew Ross Sorkin.
Speaker 5 (03:53):
I will say I was surprised. I spoke to a
number of CEOs who I would say walked into the
meeting being lump supporter ish or thinking that they might
be leaning that direction, who said that he was remarkably meandering,
could not keep a straight thought, was all over the map,
and that they was maybe not surprising, but was interesting
(04:17):
to me because these were people who I think might
have been actually predisposed to him, and actually walked out
of the room less predisposed to him, actually predisposed to
thinking this is not necessary. As one person said, this
may not be any different or better than a Biden thought.
If you're thinking that way.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
The only thing I because remember, rich people are very
mad at Joe Biden, and I think we need to
take a minute here to talk about why Joe Biden
has put someone in charge of antitrust who is really
really smart.
Speaker 3 (04:48):
By the way, I just like to point out I
am a Lena kh fanboy.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Right, Lena Khan?
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Why am I b Yes, tell us.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
Why I am a fan of Lina Khan Because I'm
a conservative who believe in free markets and not in
this goddamn kleptocracy that we've established that allows the people
with more lobbyists to win every regulatory fight, and that
allows major companies to destroy their competition while it's still
in the cradle so that they can retain eighty ninety
(05:16):
percent market share. I'm against people who abuse the patent system.
I'm against people who who are engaged in the kabuki
dance of we're just a company that competes in the
market when they own ninety percent of the fucking market. No, no,
no no, and if the market is broken because they've
managed to short circuit it by regulatory capture, by lobbying,
(05:39):
by political favors, by and by manipulating markets.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
That's not a free market.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
I approach this from the right, not as like I
want the government to run everything. No, No, I want
the government to stop giving these corporations everything they want
and giving them monopoly power or oligopoly power in the market.
Speaker 6 (06:00):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
So what I think is important here is that some
rich kleptocrats are very pissed. They went into this meeting
very trump curious. Andrew ross Organ describes their horror at
the level of distracted and also disjointed and also demented
rhetoric from Donald J. Trump. Seventy eight years old today,
(06:24):
Happy birthday, Donald Trump.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
All I can say is at the age of seventy eight,
where I will be eighteen years from now.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Humbo brag.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
I hope I don't feel the same icy hand of
death clenching my heart Donald Trump is now experiencing, because
I have to tell you, I don't think this has
been a good week for the guy. And we joke
about the shark thing, but all the reporting out of
the hearing yesterday and one of my friends got to
read back from a member yesterday who is a Trump supporter,
(06:54):
who said, man, that was awkward.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
That was fucking weird. That was not great.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Someone said it was like a drum uncle.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Yeah, it was like talking to your drunk uncle at
the family reunion. But like I said, a friend of
mine spoke to a member who came back and said,
that was so awkward.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
It was not great.
Speaker 4 (07:11):
And it was a lot of like Trump giving them
political advice, which.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Is people are like, oh, please God, don't make me
do that. Please God, don't make me do that.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
They're like, you should have zoom town halls. Yes, you
should do that. That'll be fun for me.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
What else did they say?
Speaker 4 (07:28):
He was on one of his little little revenge things.
He was going after Jeff Rowe, who ran santruss billion
dollar train wreck of a campaign, and he was going
out all these people, you know, you've got to do
it my way. And there was also a sense that
he was like just crazy, like he's not winning Virginia.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Really in Minnesota.
Speaker 3 (07:50):
It's fabulous to think.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
But I don't wake up in the morning mill you know,
I could worry about any number of things in this campaign.
I don't wake up in the morning going, man, what's
my strategy to beat Trump in Virginia.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Right, I'm looking at the notice in this nonprofit newsroom
that I'm like obsessed with.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
I I love them.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
They're reporting and they said that Trump suggested that only
that abortion only became a complex issue ten years ago,
which is probably when he learned about it. I didn't
know that.
Speaker 5 (08:19):
I just you're telling you me not for the first time.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Right.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
He told if he were in office, he would have
prevented war in Ukraine and also Hamas's attack on October
seventh in Israel. Russian ships off the coast of Cuba
were a particular interest to Trump, earning him a standing
ovation from the only Cuban born lawmaker, Senator Mario Diaz,
(08:43):
who you know. Trump also laid into Jeff Rowe as
a top former strategist for Ron DeSantis' presidential run. Trump
said Roe, who directed millions of dollars to firms he controlled,
well advising disantist as surgery on candidates wallets.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Let's be clear about something.
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Jeff row in twenty twenty two was involved in eleven
campaigns that spent a total of one hundred and ten
million dollars, and he got blown the fuck out.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
I like him for that.
Speaker 4 (09:10):
Actually, I think he won one congressional race out of
the whole package. Then he jumped over to do Ron
DeSantis's inside the campaign and the super pack through some
ledger Germaine, which is a word it's under used.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
I don't even know what it means.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
What is a man like sleight of hand.
Speaker 4 (09:24):
His company was representing both the pack and the campaign.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
They're like, we have a firewall. Uh huh, I bet
you do.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
A long story short, as we all know, President DeSantis'
campaign went really really well and as the nominee of
the Republican Party President Santa oh wait he did, and
he got blown the fuck out in Iowa.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Yeah, but he is a terrible, terrible, terrible candidate.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
Oh yeah, for sure. But Jeff Row also there's a
little inside tweak here. He and Jared had this great
relationship for a while, and Jared was trying to bring
Jeff Row in at one point to overcome all of
the Corey Lewandowski, Brad Parscal, Steve Bannon, Yahoo wing ding
weirdos in the situation. But instead the battle was won
(10:11):
by Susie Wiles and Chris Losovita, who I am told
yesterday I was told there was a Trump team call
or zoom. I'm not sure which one it was, but
they were on a call when the news broke about
Trump saying that Milwaukee was a horrible place, and we
were told that was like you could hear a pin
drop on the call, Like, oh fuck, I'm saying, I
(10:38):
want to ask you something about this this weird week.
So the Supreme Court yesterday comes out on Mithra pristone
with a decision that was a setback on the right,
but it was only on standing. So first off, I
wanted to ask you about this kind of sing about this.
Last night I got to ask Molly about this. What
do you think the politics of it mean? And should
people be too happy about this? I don't think they should.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
No. I actually think what's interesting about it, which I
was thinking about last night, was like, I mean, look,
they threw it out on standing. There is no standing
on this, and again it really speaks the Fifth Circuit right.
The fact that the Supreme Court even had to like
look at this for the Circus right exactly, that the
Supreme Court even had to look at something that's crazy
is really like it makes them look good again. We
(11:22):
know from the Supreme Court. They do earlier decisions that
make them look less crazy, and then right before they
go on vacation they dump the real crazy ones. So
expect some crazy shit to go down. This they never
had standing, so I think they'll come back with this.
I mean, one of the things that this Supreme Court
loves to do is to give you a taste of
(11:43):
what's going to happen and then bring it back. Remember
Roberts were done with abortion. They have two abortion cases
this semester, so I think it's very likely we'll see
more on the pills. Look, the pills for them are
the worst, right because you know you can have abortions.
Speaker 4 (11:59):
They make it private, right, they can't stand outside a
clinic and screaming at pregnant women.
Speaker 1 (12:05):
But I think we've already seen an introduction that like
two of the most crazy justices are ready to use
the Commstock Act for whatever they can. And so I
think we know where this is going. Unlike Donald Trump,
who can't keep it in his pants, they understand that
like abortion is a fucking loser for them. And so
while you have like these conferences, say, you know, remember
(12:27):
you had the Southern Baptist Convention saying they're going to
go after IVF next, which is like just the thing
not to say during an election year when Democrats are saying,
you're going to go after IVF next, and Republicans are like,
we don't want to codify it, but you're good, right.
Can you imagine Katie Brett and Ted Cruz are like
cursing the Southern Baptists being like, don't say anything about IVF.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
We got to win the Southern Baptists.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
They gave Democrats a gift yesterday in this campaign that,
as you and I both know, Donald Trump is not
a smart man.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
Has incredible political instinct.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
He has a feral sense of cunning and instincts that
are cunning. And that's why Yesterday's like, oh, Bush is
now complicated. Some states are good, some states are not.
He understands how deadly this can be if he fucks
it up, and he's kind of fuck it up. But
this whole thing, I was just curious about your take
on it, because I really think that this was a very,
(13:24):
very very bad week with the Southern Baptist and I
don't want people to get too enthusiastic about this court decision.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Thinking, oh, well, they figured it out. They're not going
to fuck u. Now, they're gonna.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Still yeah, yeah, oh, no question. I think two things.
They are going to fuck you and also they are
definitely coming for IBF.
Speaker 4 (13:43):
Yeah, and they're coming for birth control. Let's stop pretending
they're not.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
The goal here is to make it so you can't
have an IUD and you can't have the morning after
pill right now, right there saying right now the position
that is on the sort of starting line. It hasn't
been fully expressed, but right now it's this embryonic personhood idea.
So that means no more IVF. That means no more
(14:08):
IUD because an IUD they consider to be an abortion
because they keep the feetus from implanting. No more morning
after pills. So these are three things they are like
actively ready to go after. Once they get those. By
the way, we will be back in like the eighteen nineties,
like Canada won't be normal. Mexico has legalized abortion, right
(14:31):
one of.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
The largest Catholic countries in the hemisphere is legalized abortion.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Well then, yeah, exactly, but we because the two of
these Catholics are progressive compared to the Evangelicals that we
are being ruled by right now or the evangelicals that
make up the Republican Party, because we are they're not
empower though they're trying to get back from power. I
think it's a real shit show. But I also think
it's we're thinking about this, which is Trump is going
to try to sell this abortion thing. As you know,
(14:56):
one of the greatest tricks that Donald Trump ever pulled
was that he people convinced that he was a moderate
because he had been a Democrat and because he also,
you know, has had all these sexual assault delegations. We thought,
who wasn't gonna you don't know whether your religious extreme is,
But it turns out he is.
Speaker 4 (15:14):
Like I said, I just want people to be cautious
about that whole thing because I'm convinced that this is
basically a Supreme Court headfake, where you know, John Roberts
is trying to play his.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
His home own little big thing. That ain't it, folks,
This Supreme Court.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
We have more decisions today. And the other thing is
it's June fourteenth, so like we're going to have two
weeks of starting some of the really crazy decisions going.
And you know, look, this Supreme Court has one goal.
It's to remake the country in the image of this
very kind of religious, deeply undemocratic, anti government craziness.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
It's absolutely true. I think we're now entering the real
heat of the campaign. We're coming up on the debate,
We're coming up on a lot of moments where people
are going to see what the people are made of.
I don't think Donald Trump is doing well physically. I
don't think he's doing well mentally. I think he is
in much deeper trouble than people believe. That doesn't mean
we get to take any days off. I don't think
this guy is very stable right now. I think the
(16:14):
court cases broke his brain like more than it's usually
been broken.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
And I'm here for that.
Speaker 4 (16:19):
The analogy to nerd out for just a second, this
is like Germany in late nineteen forty three. They know
they're going to lose the war, but that doesn't mean
they're not crazy. And that doesn't mean the fanatic loyalists
around Hitler I mean Trump. But I repeat myself, you
know the fanatics are going to stay fanatic. But I
think they know that the inevitability argument with Trump. They
(16:39):
may work with the billionaire class, but it's not working
more broadly.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Than that right now, Yeah, no, I agree.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
It's Rick Wilson Ram Sunshine.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Spring is here, and I bet you are trying to
look fashionable. So why not pick up some fashionable all
new Fast Politics merchandise. Yes, we just opened a news
store with all new designs just for you. Get t shirts, hoodies, hats,
and toe bags. To grab some head to fastpolitics dot com.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Janelle Stelson is a candidate in Pennsylvania's tenth congressional district.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Welcome to Fastpolitics to now, thank you a pleasure, Mollie.
So you are running for Congress in Pennsylvania's tenth district.
You are running against Scott Perry. I feel like Scott Perry.
He's a special kind of Republican candidate to be running against.
Speaker 7 (17:32):
Well, and you're very polite.
Speaker 1 (17:35):
Explain to us what your district looks like and what
you're doing.
Speaker 6 (17:39):
You know, my district looks a lot like every other
district that wants its needs to be met. For the
past twelve years, our sixth term congressman has been doing
very little to meet those needs. He has mostly been well,
you know, he's kind of dumped in some circles Congressman chaos.
These days down in Washington creating a whole wreaking havoc,
(18:01):
basically meaning in large part is an anarchist obstructionist. He's
the reason this one hundred and eighteenth Congress had at
one point achieved fewer pieces of legislation than at any
time since the Great Depression back in the nineteen thirties.
Thank you, Congressman Perry. That is not exactly meeting my
district's needs. The do nothing Congress, right Amen's sister.
Speaker 1 (18:24):
So explain to us, You're in a very tight district
in Pennsylvania, but we just saw a poll that has
you guys tied. Explain to us how you win in Pennsylvania's.
Speaker 6 (18:36):
Tenth Well, I think how you win is something I've
been practicing for the past thirty eight years, and that's listening,
listening to formally what my viewers had to say were
their issues and concerns, and now listening to what I
hope will be my constituents say and carrying their voices
to the halls of Congress. And that really is why
(18:56):
I got into this race, you know, being on air
as the Trust did nonpartisan voice for the past thirty
eight years, and everybody living rooms is a big deal.
And you know, I went from polling place to polling
place on our primary day, which was back in April,
the end of April, and I won a six way
primary by twenty points against some very good candidates, including
(19:19):
the nominee from last cycle. But what I was saying
is at the polling places, the Republicans were going in
or shaking my hands because they know me from TV,
and some of them would whisper conspiratorially, I'm going to
write you in and so is my husband, and others
were saying, you know, we can't vote for you this time,
but we got you back in November.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Don't worry.
Speaker 6 (19:40):
And so, you know, that's always great to hear, particularly
from Republicans.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Yeah, there are a lot of people on the progressive
side who are mad at Joe Biden. But when you
heard that speech that he gave the D Day's speech,
there were two different ones, but one of them was
an homage to previous president twops spoken on D Day
and have spoken about the importance of American democracy. One
(20:06):
of the people he gave this homage to was Ronald Reagan. Now, politically,
a lot of his policy decisions do not speak to me.
But if you're going to compare Democrats and Republicans, they're
much closer to each other than they are to Mega.
You know what, at I.
Speaker 6 (20:21):
Look at this as American issues. I'm not somebody like
Scott Perry who went to the border a couple months
ago and was grand standing. You know, he flew there
on the taxpayer dime, even though he touts himself as
a fiscal conservative.
Speaker 1 (20:33):
He off no solutions.
Speaker 6 (20:35):
He just pointed fingers of blame, which everybody does when
they head to the southern border. You know, this is
what's wrong with Washington. This is what is wrong with
longtime six term politician, Congressman Scott Perry, Congressman Chaos. He
goes down, he offers no solutions. You know, this is
an American problem, not a Republican or a democratic problem.
(20:57):
We need to secure the border, have a proper amount
of people working there. Unlike Scott Perry, who has voted
to cut funding repeatedly for border security. You know, we
need to look at this problem and if we do
it right, we can be a shining example of democracy
around the world. Let's shore up this deeply broken asylum system.
You know, if people are not deemed to have legitimate
(21:19):
claims to be in this country, send them home expeditiously
and humanity in a humanitarian fashion, get them back to
their native countries. And conversely, the people who do have
legitimate claims to be here, let's move more quickly to
get them assimilated into our communities and work in and
pay in taxes and doing the things everybody wants them
(21:39):
to be doing. This crisis of refugees and asylum seekers
is not getting any easier as the earth becomes less
hospitable after the damage we've done, So we can really
show people how to do this right again, an American problem,
not something that Republicans or Democrats need to be pointing
fingers at the other side all the time. Both parties
(22:01):
have been watching it for years.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
I also think though, that there's not a path right,
Like if you put money into immigration and you have
a path for people for whom they are actually legitimately
seeking asylum, right, if you had judges on the border,
if you could process claims quickly, if you could offer
a real legal path to citizenship, you know, I mean
(22:25):
there are solves here that they're just money that is
not going there.
Speaker 6 (22:30):
Yeah, and Mollie This is but one example, and there
are many. I know, we only have minutes for our
show today, Yeah, but you know, we could probably be
here for a month talking about all the egregious votes
he's taken during his time in office.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
And also Pennsylvania does not share a border with Mexico.
It does not.
Speaker 6 (22:48):
But we're all affected. Again, it's American problem, you know.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Yes, exactly, but I do think that it is like
one of the things that I've been struck by with
this crew. But Scott Perry also doesn't really leave in
an American democracy. Can you talk about these Republicans who
have gone authoritarian?
Speaker 6 (23:05):
Well, a lot of people think that Scott Berry is
just a bridge too far right.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Now.
Speaker 6 (23:11):
You know, the extremest votes he has taken time and
time again that in no way resemble the Republican Party
at all. He's too extreme for the Republicans now as well,
you know, you look at January sixth, he's one of
the architects deeply involved in that day. It is so
disappointing that he's just been put on the House Intelligence Committee,
which of coursees the FBI, which he was under investigation
(23:34):
by the FBI is the agency that seized his phone
because of his deep involvement in January sixth and the
deadly insurrection. So you know, it's almost like the fox
guarding the Henhouse. In terms of the Mall Committee after
eating all the heads. This guy was under investigation, and
now he's going to have oversight over the folks who
(23:56):
are investigating him. It feels deeply broken as an American,
not in a partisan way. It makes me sad, and
it sort of seems like we're seeing a little bit,
you know, these things that the Supreme Court is looking
broken these days. This to me is like Justices Alito
and Clarence Thomas not recusing themselves from January sixth cases.
(24:19):
This is just, you know, somebody has shown you who
they are and shown you why they should not be
involved in whatever structure you're talking about here, we're talking
about the Intel Committee. You know, it's just a very
very bad fit. And when you have must the Republicans
questioning and concerned that he would be on that committee,
you know, shame on Speaker Johnson.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Yeah, I mean, Speaker Johnson really serves at the pleasure
of Donald Trump, right, I mean that's how he got
the job, that's how he keeps the job well.
Speaker 6 (24:47):
As I say, I can only handle one extremist at
a time. I can only handle one election, Dot Denier.
I'm focused on Congressman Perry.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
When you are in this moment and you're talking to
people in Pennsylvania and you live in this very purple district,
what are their concerns, what are they telling you? What
do you hear it?
Speaker 6 (25:06):
Well, again, Mollie, to have all week, after twelve years
of relative inaction, things that should not have been urgent
to attend to have become urgent because of the inaction.
But I'll tell you probably the top three things I
hear a lot of people talking about, for instance, one
of the extreme right fringe votes that he took that
he was the only one in the Pennsylvanian delegation, no
(25:27):
other Republican, no Democrat. He voted not to give medals
to the officers who protected the Capitol, protected his life
on January sixth, and the lives of his colleagues, so
that in a few hours he could walk back into
the chamber and vote to overturn all of our votes.
People don't want to have their votes overturned. They want
(25:49):
to know that their voices are heard in the halls
of Congress, and this is a really big deal. And
then you know he didn't comply with the bipartisan commission
that was investigating what happened January sixth to make sure
it never happens again. You know, he was one of
those He's like, yeah, I'm not talking to them, And
he sought a presidential pardon, which now he says he
didn't seek, but people in the Trump administration said he did.
(26:12):
And if you haven't done anything wrong, I'm not sure
why you have to ask for a pardon, right exactly,
this just me.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
I'll tell you.
Speaker 6 (26:19):
I hear about that. I hear a lot about choice
and women's reproductive rights.
Speaker 1 (26:24):
Oh you do, that's good? Oh yeah, it's huge.
Speaker 6 (26:28):
And that is a Republican and a Democratic issue and
every party in between. I was live on the set
back in twenty twenty two when the Supreme Court handed
down the Dobbs decision, overturning Row, and I was put
in the position where I had to look out into
the camera in my best at the time, nonpartisan way
and tell every woman watching that her rights had been
(26:49):
rolled back fifty years.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Were you shocked when it happened?
Speaker 6 (26:53):
I think everybody was kind of shocked. Although we you know,
at what point do you get desensitized because we're living
in a shocking world world. But yes, I mean, and
of course we had an inkling that it was going
to happen when there was a leap several months before.
But something else really important happened that day. The fact
that in many cases, depending on your age, your mother
had more rights than your daughters or your nieces. That's
(27:16):
a pretty big deal. But I went up to the
newsroom afterward and one of my colleagues was sort of
hunched down in the corner. And it's somebody who has
to deal with a lot of trauma every day. He's
the person who sends us out to fires and accidents,
and you know, there's a lot of loss of life
on the news. And I touched his shoulder and I said,
to you, okay, and he looked up at me and
he said, Janelle, you don't know this, but my wife
(27:38):
was raped and if we had not had abortion available
to us, our lives would be ruined. And it's a
very important thing to remember on the campaign trail, you
know that it's not just about women, it's about the
men and the families who love us. And I also
had to seek comment from our local congress people that
evening and in the next couple of days, and Congressman
(27:59):
Perry was basically dancing a jig. He wants a nationwide
abortion ban sponsored the Life at Conception Act has sponsored
that for the past seven years, which would be, you know,
a nationwide abortion band with no exceptions, not for rape,
not for incest, not for the life or help of
the mother. And same thing with IVF. And he keeps
trying to walk this back because he's seen how deeply
(28:21):
unpopular it was after Alabama made its bands on IVF.
And I say, judge a man by his actions, not
by his work.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Yeah. And also I feel like one of the things
that this Life and Conception Act does, besides making it
impossible to get abortions, is it also if this is
taken as it's advertised, it would be the end of
IVF as we know.
Speaker 7 (28:47):
Yeah, it would be.
Speaker 6 (28:48):
With some people try to act as a recent phenomenon.
You know, IVF has been around for forty years. Members
of my family have been conceived by IVF. This is
something that you know, when you're talking to a group
of people, almost to any group.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
It's the kind of thing, you know.
Speaker 6 (29:01):
I do a lot of speak at engagements and you say,
who here has been touched by cancer? Almost every hand
was up. I feel like it's starting to be the
same way with IVF. It's so popular. And again this
drives home the point we should not have politicians involved
in our healthcare decisions. Who wants Scott Perry telling you
when to start a family, how to start a family,
(29:22):
you know, or expand your family. It's just something that
should be between a woman, her doctor and whoever she
brings into the conversation. It's ridiculous and I think, you know, Molly,
and for everybody listening, if guys were the ones who
had the babies, we probably wouldn't be having this discussion,
right of course, I think it's two things. Right, it's
like men controlling the conversation about women's health. But I
(29:45):
also think it's that a lot of us were in
denial that it would go.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
I actually was not. I always thought after they passed
SBA in Texas, I thought, oh, I know where this
is going.
Speaker 7 (29:55):
Oh you were right, and it's not going to stop here.
Speaker 6 (29:58):
Now we're looking at lg BTQ issues, we're looking at
you know, there's an awful lot going on that Scott
Perry is all kinds of in favor of restricting, which
is very funny because he was head of the Freedom Caucus. Honestly,
it should be called the anti Freedom Caucus.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
I think that what is interesting too is that you
do see this sort of belief on the right, like
they are supporting all of these like wildly unpopular ideas
right like contraception. Nobody in the world. It's like pornography,
like these are two things that Americans are just like,
leave us alone. You know. They want the freedom to
(30:35):
read what they want to read, and they want the
freedom to use birth control because we live in the
world where there's birth control now. And these are two
things that the right has in their crosshairs.
Speaker 6 (30:47):
It really is. And I have to say, you know,
there's a cadre of people or a cabal, whatever you
want to call it in congre right now, the obstructionists,
the ones who don't do anything for the people in
their home districts, like Scott Perry. You know, we have
economic issues we should be talking about, but instead we're
just you know, it's like you look at these people,
they're causing so many problems. They're not tending to the
(31:09):
issues their districts care about. And I got to say,
if you look at a Marjorie Taylor Green and think, yes,
she's not for me, she doesn't belong in Congress, there's
not a lot we can do about that. She's in
a solidly Republican district. But I got to tell you,
Scott Perry is the most vulnerable maggot extremist in Congress
right now, and he's getting more vulnerable all the time
(31:31):
as I come after him and our support builds. So
this is really the place, Pennsylvania's tenth district. If you
want to flip the US House blue and get rid
of some of this nonsense, you get rid of Scott Perry,
and you vote me in.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
Right. What we've seen with Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren
Vauper too, is that one member of Congress, if it's
one like Scott Perry, who's so ideological and nutty, can
really cause a lot of damage in American democracy.
Speaker 6 (31:57):
Well, you know, Mollie, my estimation of you is rising
by the minute because I see that you're very polite,
because you use the adjective when I am talking to supporters,
whether it's on the phones or knocking doors or just
people come up to me on the streets. They use
a lot saltier language than knife.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
I'm curious. One of the things that causes me a
lot of anxiety is this idea that people are not
getting the real news, that they're getting this kind of
red sludge, that they're getting fake news through TikTok and Instagram.
I mean, how much of your job is sort of
debunking lies or do you feel that people are actually
(32:35):
getting good news through local outlets.
Speaker 7 (32:38):
First of all, you hurt my heart when you talk
about media that way.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Molly up the rights. Well that's why I said, you're
getting good news, good local news.
Speaker 6 (32:48):
Yeah, well, I know there are a lot of other outlets.
In fact, recently we're hearing, you know, about interference by
bots sent by certain countries. And I got to say
another nickname, Congressman CHAOSK. Perry has is Putin's Pennsylvania puppet,
you know, because he's against the funding for Ukraine and
you know a lot of people for them. It's just
(33:09):
a foreign relations situation, which he is, by the way,
on that committee and wreaking habit as well. But it's
also an economic issue here at home. When you can't
get grain out of the port of Odessa in Ukraine,
that's going to cause a lot of problems around the
world in terms of food insecurity and prices. Here at home,
you have people who are struggling. There are a lot
(33:31):
of people who are pinched, and they tell me, you know,
I'm actually having to make decisions about whether I put
food on the table or take my life saving drugs.
And I got to say, here's another point against Scott Perry.
He's the one who voted against the government's ability to
negotiate prescription drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. You know, right
now it's only ten drugs. I'd like to see that
(33:51):
expand if I'm lucky enough to get to Washington. And
I'd like to see the age limits lowered as well,
but he voted against it. Again, this is a guy
who touts himself a fiscal conservative, and it was extrapolated
that the move is going to save taxpayers and a
government about one hundred and twenty billion dollars in fairly
short order, and it will save the average person slash
family about one hundred and fifty dollars a month, so
(34:13):
they don't have to make those tough decisions about whether
to put food on the table or take their drugs.
And you know what, here's the dot dot dot, Mollie.
He did it while he was taking money from Big Pharma.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
Of course, I'm not surprised. Thank you, so so so much.
I hope he'll come back.
Speaker 3 (34:32):
Molly.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
It was an absolute pleasure.
Speaker 6 (34:33):
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
So there and Elizabeth Dias are the authors of the
Fall of Row The Rise of a New America.
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Welcome Too Fast Politics, Lisa, Thanks for having me and Elizabeth.
It's great to be here. Fantastic. The book is called
The Fall of Row, the Rise of a New America.
So super interesting. We're talking about this before. Lisa. You
are political reporter, national political reporter. Elizabeth your beat is religion.
(35:05):
How did you find each other to tell the story.
Speaker 7 (35:08):
Well, we both joined the Times around in twenty eighteen,
so we sort of joined at the same time, and
we found that we liked looking at politics through different
but similar lenses, you know, sort of cultural politics, how
politics influences the country, you know, not so much the
data and the Machia nations and the strategy but more
sort of how politics influences people's lives. And we were
(35:31):
both had covered abortion for bits and pieces over our career,
and we did a few stories together on end We
had been watching the encroachment increasingly restrictive bands of course
in the States during the Trump years, and then when
it was oral arguments and Dobbs, which was the case
that would go on to end Row, we were on
the phone together and we were listening and we actually
(35:51):
both remember the moment it happened, which was I don't
know if you remember this in the argument but went
justice Barrett started talking about safe haven boxes, which are
those boxes?
Speaker 1 (36:00):
Yeah? Yeah, and then you explain though to our listeners. Yeah.
Speaker 7 (36:05):
So she was saying, basically, why do you need abortion
when you have these safe haven boxes, which your boxes
by fire stations where a new mother can leave the newborn,
you know, anonymously, and I'll be adopted. And we were
on the phone and one of us said to the other, Oh,
they're going to overturn rop This is it, and someone
needs to be writing this for history. This is a
major major turning moment in like American politics and law
(36:30):
and policy. And we're sure someone must be writing this.
How could someone not be writing this? It doesn't tell
me don't need to write this, And then nobody was
writing it, ed that we were writing it, And there you.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
Go, Elizabeth Imian, How did the religion be inform your
experience of this story?
Speaker 8 (36:45):
Well, this is a topic that we really felt you
can't understand it unless you can really see all the
strands of the big picture.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
In just looking at it through lons.
Speaker 8 (36:56):
Of politics leaves out the massive our story of how religion,
especially conservative mostly conservative Christianity, was a driving force in
even getting to this point. I mean, the roots of
the anti abortion movement are deep in the Catholic Church.
Speaker 7 (37:15):
Evangelicals were late to that movement.
Speaker 8 (37:18):
And while yes, abortion is about the procedure itself and
the question of ken a woman and a pregnancy, the
meaning of abortion in American life is just so much bigger.
Right when people are talking about abortion, what we found
that really talking about is what does it mean to
be a woman in America and what are all of
the values that go with that. So unless you kind
(37:42):
of take a look and examine that bigger meaning, the
why right of why this is such a huge issue,
we really only get a partial story It's been a
really fruitful combination because you know, it leads not only
to investigations in areas that have been undercovered, like the
a role of religion in Christianity in overturning Row, but
(38:05):
also it provides a way to understand what's going on
that you just really can't understand where we're going as
a country, the rise of been to America, as we
say in the in the subtitle, without understanding these bigger
cultural and religious parents.
Speaker 7 (38:22):
Right at its core, this is a question abortion, is
a question of where women fit into the national project
of America. And you know, since that famous Abigail Adams quote,
you know where she wrote to John Ams and said,
remember the ladies, like, that question has been unsettled. And
what the ruling in that case showed us is that
it remains unsettled that there is a very active conservative
(38:43):
Christian minority in the country who has one view of
what where a woman fits and what a woman should
be in America, and there's a broad majority that's more
secular that has a diff from view, right. And so
this is really about what does it mean to be
a woman in the amic democracy and more than that,
in the American project as a whole.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
So what do you think, what do you think about
this idea that where does fetal personhood and I like
to call it embryonic personhood because I'm on the opinion side,
Where does that factor into all of this?
Speaker 8 (39:22):
Well, that's really where the anti abortion movement is headed.
I mean, at its core, it's a movement that believes
that a human is a person deserving of rights at conception.
That's a certainly a minority view in America. It's quite
a minority view. And I think for so many years
(39:43):
because the movement was talking about Okay, we have to
overturn row, it's sort of obscured that an ultimate end,
like what an ultimate end of that would be. So
the fallow row was really just the beginning of this
much much bigger goal. I mean, people don't talk a
lot of the more main mainstream anti abortion groups try
(40:05):
are trying to not talk about quote field personhood right now,
especially the.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
Relation until they get into play power, right, so and so.
Speaker 8 (40:13):
But the but what we are seeing is because kind
of the the the edges have been stripped away, right,
that that kind of veil of denial that so many
people had about what was going on and like wood Row,
the very idea that rowe could go away, that that
denial has been shattered. And what we're seeing too is
the anti abortion movement has been changing so much since
(40:36):
the case, and there is an edge that has been
increasingly radicalized also through the Trump movement. Right, things that
seem possible before are now suddenly possible. So they are
openly trying to pursue rights for an embryo as I go.
And you know, we're seeing this be manifested in things
(40:57):
like opposing IDF for example.
Speaker 1 (41:00):
Is there a religious component to that? Oh yeah, where
does that come from?
Speaker 7 (41:04):
It's really deep.
Speaker 8 (41:05):
In one set of a Christianity's view about what it
means to be a human person, right, and when this
sort of soul comes into the body, how does all
that work.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
It's deep in.
Speaker 8 (41:16):
Catholic theology that life begins that conception. So not everyone,
of course, who is Catholic or who is Christian.
Speaker 7 (41:25):
Believes that.
Speaker 8 (41:26):
This is where you see a lot of fracturing, but
it's very hard. We really think it's impossible to talk
about what it means like where this movement is going
without understanding those deep roots in one certain Christian worldview.
So what we're seeing now even at the Supreme Court,
(41:48):
all with the Supreme Court, out of these questions of
you know, what does it mean? What might it mean
for America to be a Christian nation? Is democracy on
its own? Or is America a democracy sort of set
within the Kingdom of God? For example? There's a fringe
that is really pushing that. And so it's a major
(42:08):
conflict that extends well beyond just abortion. It's all aspects
and pick your reach in American life.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Right, what did you find when you were reporting this book? Like,
one of the things I'm often surprised by is how
I know a lot of stuff because I just read
all on the same topics again and again and again.
What did you sort of stumble on where you're like, oh, wow.
Speaker 7 (42:31):
Well, so I think there's a very macro answer that question,
and a bunch of micro ones too.
Speaker 1 (42:36):
Sure so.
Speaker 7 (42:37):
And the biggest level, like, our book covers a ten
year period which we called the Final Decade of Row.
And we start with that Republican autopsy that was conducted
after around me lost in Obama won re election in
twenty twelve, where Republicans basically said we need to dump
abortion as an issue. This is a loser for us,
and we need to find ways to win more female
(42:58):
voters and voters of color and all of that. We
picked that point because it's the lowest point for the
anti abortion movement, and we charged their rise over the decade.
And this was a story that I had covered, that
I had lived. I covered Romy's campaign, I covered Hillaries campaign,
I covered Button's campaign. You know, I went a million
campaigns in between, and all the politics. But there was
something about putting this all together, that going back and
(43:21):
isolating the moments that were just about this issue and
looking at them as a whole and re reporting them
and getting these additional details that I realized how much
even I, as I covered these issues, had missed, and
how we didn't really have a narrative, a clear narrative
to explain how ro fell. So, you know, I think
when we think about the Republican Party and I write
(43:42):
about the Republican Party, everyone kind of knows what happened there,
what happened with trump Ism and the MAGA movement and
with abortion. You know, there's this simplistic, you know answer,
which is Trump won three Supreme Court justices and the
court change and abortion and Roe fell. But in fact,
the answer is so much bigger, and the strategy by
the anti abortion movement was so much longer and more
(44:03):
detailed than just that. So I think what surprised me
was how there was no narrative around this issue, how
little in a way it had been covered, and how
our book really creates the first narrative that explains to
people how the country got here and how row felt now.
In terms of the smaller details, another thing that we
really wanted to do was dive into the lives of
(44:23):
the people on both sides of this policy and this debate,
who you know, were most active, and really explore their
own lives. So we just learned all these really interesting
personal details about people's families and fertility, you know, their childhoods,
and those were things I really hadn't known. And the
one that I particularly liked was we discovered that Mike
(44:44):
Pence when he was married, it was a secon we
you know, it was a second marriage for Karen Pence's wife,
and so we were looking around to see like at
the time, Mike Pence was Catholic, as was Karen Pens
and they were pretty devoutly Catholic, So we were trying
to see was the first marriage innulled because you know,
obviously divorced round pound in Catholicism. And we actually found
out that the priest who married them shortly after marrying
(45:06):
Mike and Karen Pence came out of the closet and
went on to lead in deep pride. Good for him,
I geah, Yeah, it was kind of a fun little twist.
So Mike and Karen Pence were married who, you know,
such an opponent same sex marriage and rights, were actually
married by gay Price no longer a priest.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
Good for them. Elizabeth, What about you? What did you
sort of learn writing this book that you were really
surprised by macro micro whatever.
Speaker 8 (45:33):
Well, everything that Lisa said, I mean, I would add
on to it. I think understanding these deep religious influences
and how all of this happened, even for me, was
pretty powerful. There's, you know, a way to look at this.
Everything that's going on is sort of a story within
a story within a story, and part of that is
(45:56):
why America is changing so much on issues like abortion.
This is happening in a context of rising secularism total,
you know, the de christianization of America, the struggle for that,
the rising backlash within certain conservative Christian circles to that
and what that looks like. It's why you can see both,
like you can have these competing things going on of
(46:19):
the country becoming more secular and also right wing for
conservative Christianity and people trying to express their values. You
know that that really is make America great again for them,
like bringing back so that was that's been fascinating. But
even beyond that, the way that this story of the
(46:40):
Fall of Row fits in for so many of the
people who are working to make it happen into a
story a religion that goes back to a young woman
who likely was a teenager and gave birth to a
baby that they worship as the Son of God.
Speaker 1 (46:58):
Right, these are such.
Speaker 8 (46:59):
Debated storylines and you just can't understand I don't think
the states or what it means will mean in the
future to be a woman in America without understanding this
bigger fight going on between one particular Christian worldview and
another majority view in America that is more pluralistic and
(47:23):
is increasingly secular.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
So it's just part of that.
Speaker 8 (47:26):
We can see in a very specific way through Leonard
Leo the longtime architect right at the Federalist Society, who's
so influential, and picking the judges who would go on
to become former President Trump's Supreme Court picks for him.
The story of why he's so opposed to abortion personally
is deeply rooted in his religious views about suffering and
(47:50):
his own story of his daughter who hads fina bifida
and die and kind of.
Speaker 7 (47:53):
How he dealt religiously with that.
Speaker 8 (47:56):
And we found that actually the day that Row found
it happened on a certain Catholic holy day, the Feast
of the Sacred Heart, which has extreme personal significance to
Leonard Leo's. He had named his daughter after the saint.
The holy day is devoted to It's like.
Speaker 1 (48:15):
The Da Vinci Code, but women suffer instead. Yes, but
go on, I don't mean to boil it down in
such a way, but it's just, you know, I feel
bad for him, but not that bad, But yes, go on,
I was sorry.
Speaker 8 (48:29):
You get at these sort of epic questions of spiritual
versus earthly forces and how power works, and it's just,
I think such a much bigger story. It's very hard
to confront that now, and especially what that means for
you know, the stakes for women, right, that's just very
different ideas about the role of women in society and
(48:51):
family when it comes to sex, marriage, kids, all of it.
You have to kind of spend time exploring that and
seeing what the steaks are.
Speaker 1 (48:59):
Yeah. No, no, it's so interesting and I didn't mean
to make light of it, but I can't help myself
because I grew up in a very non religious Hashold.
One of the things we talked about when we talked
together on Morning Joe was that the left really never
saw this coming. I've talked to other people who've said
this very same thing, which was that so much was
(49:19):
riding on the election of Hillary Clinton, that Planned Parenthood
and a lot of organizations, that there was such a
mass sort of belief that she would be the president
that certain things maybe didn't get the attention they could have.
Speaker 7 (49:33):
Look, I think that's right. I think there was a sense.
You have to remember where the country was in twenty twelve,
twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, the run ups at Clinton's run,
which was you know, it seemed like abortion was this
old fight. It was decided like conservative states at that
time were passing more restrictive laws, But it just didn't
capture the imagination. It wasn't the thing that was driving
(49:56):
like liberal activists. It felt like this thing from like
the boomer moms or grandma's or whatever. It was a
settled issue. Hillary Clinton was widely expected to win and
she was going to expand abortion rights in all of this,
and then of course she lost. And I think part
of what the left was unprepared for is they thought
about this issue in terms of the election cycles and
in terms of winning public opinion. If we destigmatize the proposal,
(50:20):
we get it in as a plot line in movies
like Juno or Gray's Anatomy. If we elect people who
will protect abortion rights, it'll be fine. They'll be forced
to roll back these restrictive laws. As Elizabeth was outlining,
the anti abortion movement is thinking in generations, right, and
they're not thinking about public opinion because they are engaged
in this battle for these like spiritual ideas. So you
(50:43):
believe that you were engaged in a world battle. It
doesn't matter if everyone disagrees with you. So what they
were doing was moving the levers of power everywhere. They
could state legislatures, judicial you know, judge ships, all the
way up to the Supreme Court. So you reach a
point where the left is unable to stop this from
happening because the anti abortion movement controls the system, and
(51:05):
that's the point at which Trump has those three Supreme
Court justices, and by then it's too late. So I
just think like the anti abortion forces were playing chess
and the abortion rights side was playing checkers, and the
skull of how they were looking at this was just
so different. It was asymmetrical in a way, right.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
I mean, I think that's a really important point that
they had this grand plan that the left just didn't
see coming in a certain way.
Speaker 7 (51:29):
And I think, like you were mentioning, you know, you
grew up in a really secular home, Like I think
it can be hard to understand, like you really have
to understand the roots of this thing in the anti
abortion movement. And you know, it's been interesting to see
all this news with the LEO and the recordings and
the flags, and you know, it didn't go unnoticed by
Elizabeth and I that the flag his wife wanted to
(51:51):
raise to push back on the Pride flag was the
flag of the Sacred Heart right, which is that Catholic symbol.
We were talking about so this is a thing that's
very deep for them can be hard, I think for
people who are raised more secularly to wrap their heads
around what that all means. I think it actually helped
us that we were raised in more observant homes, and
(52:11):
so I think that helped us kind of understand a
little bit more and take a wider purview than I
think sometimes people do to this issue, which is necessary.
Speaker 1 (52:19):
Thank you both so much.
Speaker 7 (52:21):
Thank you, ma, thank you for having us.
Speaker 1 (52:25):
No moment fuck so Rick Wilson, Yes, ma'am, do you
have a moment of fuckery?
Speaker 4 (52:32):
I do have a moment of fuckery. My moment of
thuckery is yesterday's ritual humiliation session on Capitol Hill where
Mitch fuck and McConnell, who I have told you guys
a million times loathes and despises Donald Trump with every
fiber of his grotesque little being, went out there and
once again, once again when he has a chance to
(52:55):
break the evil of Trump, and the MAGA movement went
out there. Oh well, support the Norman I'm a party
because olverys. If we don't communist Trams, lesbian celebrity abortionist
will wound.
Speaker 3 (53:08):
I mean God, all.
Speaker 4 (53:09):
Fucking mighty, the guy can't stop himself. And I'm sorry, Mitch,
you're eighty two years old. Go retire, be done. Try
not to make yourself a guy who will end up
with a grave that reeks of piss for all eternity
by supporting this fucking guy.
Speaker 1 (53:26):
Oh yes, I understand the craven desire for power. I
respect the hell out of it. But the photos out
of that meeting yesterday were so cringe well, they just
were so embarrassing, and like, you have this opportunity, even
if the guy did win, you could have salvage the
(53:49):
tiny bit of your dignity by not There were photos
of them actually, and they weren't bowing on purpose. They
were just sort of like, you know, it just looked
like they were bowing right, but it looked like, you know,
painting is from the Renaissance.
Speaker 3 (54:02):
Accidental Renaissance.
Speaker 1 (54:04):
Yeah, accidental.
Speaker 3 (54:05):
That was awful, awful, awful, awful.
Speaker 1 (54:08):
So the accidental Renaissance is our moment of fuck Gray.
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best minds
in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you
enjoyed what you've heard, Please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. And again thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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