February 10, 2025 • 46 mins
The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson examines Trump’s voters learning what his agenda actually is. More Perfect Union’s Josh Miller-Lewis details the lobbying firm funneling massive influence into Donald Trump’s White House.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds. And Attorney General Pam Bondi has shuddered
the FBI's Foreign Interference Act. They just don't want to
know about it. We have such a great show for
you today. The Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson joins us
(00:23):
to discuss Trump's voters learning about his agenda in real time.
Then we'll talk to more perfect unions. Josh Miller lewis
about the lobbying firm funneling massive influence into Donald Trump's
White House. But first the.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
News Smiley federal employees say they had to justify their
existence to Doege College freshmen in fifteen minute interviews. This
is a common thing when private equity comes in. I
remember there was this documentary about when Bain came to town,
you know, and McKinsey time that this is what they do.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
End.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Well, we're now seeing that culture spread to the US government.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yeah. Elon has decided that he is going to make
the government efficient. I want to pause for a minute
and just talk about efficiency. What is efficiency? So efficiency
is in Elon Musk's mind. What he did to X right,
he took out the things, the bells and whistles, the
things that he felt didn't add to it. So now
(01:26):
you get spam and now you sometimes the messages go down,
but you know it ultimately works, but it works not
as well as it used to. This is sort of
I think, his hope for the federal government. But what
I think you have to realize about this, And we
saw this play out in real time right today when
he was tweeting against me. Was like, I said, you know,
(01:47):
it's the richest man in the world cutting cancer research,
and he was like, no, I'm not. And here's the thing.
He's cutting part of the National Institute of Health, right,
and it's considered to be overhead. But overhead is like
leaning the labs and renting the space and paying for
the scientists. Like this is overhead. And the idea here
(02:08):
is when you start messing with grants, you start messing
with research, and there's less money for research. Now you
might have an argument that the government shouldn't be funding
cancer research. I would say that is really so stupid,
but you could, you know, you could go down this
path of what does the government do. But it really
isn't up to the richest man in the world, despite
(02:30):
how rich he is, to decide what the government should
and should not do. Right, We elected people to do
that job, and they are not doing it because and
I think this is really important when you think about
the Republicans in Congress right now, they couldn't legislate this,
and so they're just doing it anyway. And there is
(02:51):
not a public appetite for less cancer research. There is
not a public right. There's just not People aren't like, oh,
people were just doing too well with our cancer treatments here.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I would love to just see people in my life
die because the richest man on earth wants to pay
less taxes.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Well, And it's also just like even if you ideologically
believe that the government should be smaller, I mean, we
talk about this so much when we talk about Project
twenty twenty five, right, Project twenty twenty five, the Grand
Plan to dismantle the administrative state, to end government oversight,
but also to end you know, the things that nobody
really wants to end, right, cancer research, that kind of
(03:29):
stuff because it's expensive and because they don't really feel
the government should be paying for that stuff. So when
you go down that rabbit hole, the question is where
does it end? And then also if it's not being
done by elected people, but it's just being done by
random rich people, how is that constitutionally okay? And how
is that legal? And why even have elected officials right
(03:50):
if they are not allowed to control the power of
the purse, if they are not legislating, I mean, what
are they even doing? Like, and so we're watching here.
Besides the fact is very scary because there will be
a lot of government services lost, and that will be
things like you know, healthcare for veterans, science. I mean,
you'll see people in red states where the university is
(04:13):
the big employer in the state suddenly panicking because there
will be job lost, there will be financial ruin, there
will be you know this all this will actually trickle up,
believe it or not, to billionaires eventually, but it will
also trickle up to the people who are elected to handle.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
This crashes the economy, which has a lot of potential aduces.
These are people are high value spenders of the economy, right,
and they're.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Also remember like you lose these scientists, they don't come back.
I mean, that's the brain drain. Question, right, like, what
does it look like to lose scientists? What does any
of this look like? And so, I mean, that's what
we're setting ourselves up for. So this is the accelerationist
case for trump Ism, is that, like, it's better to
have him crash and burn now than to slowly lash
(05:00):
the federal government the way of John Roberts might. But
I mean, I'm not convinced that there's any good coming
from any of this.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
So a federal judge, though, has blocked Doze from accessing
Treasury Department records after nineteen States of sued Trump after
nineteen states of sued Trump's administration for this, But it
also has come with a lot of Elon having rage tweets.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
What's important to realize here is that none of this
is legal. Just because Elon is very rich doesn't mean
he gets to just completely rewrite the way we do government.
And what is important about this story is that we
have these Democratic attorneys generals And remember this summer, Jesse
and I interviewed one of them who was talking to
(05:44):
us before we were reporting about how they were ready
because they really thought that the Democrat was going to
lose and that Trump was going to win again. And
that was why these blue state attorney generals were getting
together and planning the lawsuits that they were going to
have to file. They were really organized to fight back
against a lot of this stuff. And that's what we're
(06:04):
seeing here. So, look, this judge ruled against Elon and
doage because it's not okay. Now what's going to happen
now is that you know, Muscus is tweeting against him
and saying he's a corrupt judge protecting corruption. And again
this is like really important here. Part of the double speak,
(06:26):
the sort of Orwellian double speak that these people engage in,
is this idea that you know, if you are against this,
then you are for corruption, that you're if you're against
because this is all about how they're going to make
the government more efficient. And if you're against efficiency, then
your four waste. It's not true and also it's not correct.
(06:50):
And also it's just completely not right. And so that's
what I would say is like, don't do not, do
not do not into this, do not trust it. And
also like this judge is doing the right thing because
this is illegal. So now are they trying to set
the table to ignore the court order? Very possibly. I
(07:13):
think that's very likely.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
They're definitely trying to establish a culture of that being okay.
On Twitter through Vans and Charlie Kirk tweets yep.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
This judge said that it's not okay. But you know,
it's interesting. I mean. The other thing that's really interesting
a lot of the laws that are being used to
correct this corruption or to fight this corruption, or laws
that were put in place after Nixon. So we have
this violation of the Privacy Act of nineteen seventy four,
that's another one of these, after the Empowerment Act, another
(07:43):
one of these post Nicksonian reforms, and then the Tax
Will Reform Act of nineteen seventy six, as well as
other laws. The lawsuits are used also that don't access
poses security risks, and you and I both know that
these guys are all like, very young, these hackers. One
got fire for not respecting privacy at a different job.
One tweeted racist stuff. I mean, there's a pretty good
(08:06):
case for why the people who are messing with all
of our computers should have some kind of security clearance.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Yeah. Fun stuff.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
So one of the first actions of O and B
director Russell Vought is to get rid of the CFPB.
I see just earlier today he tweeted that it is
a woke and weaponized agency against disfavored industries and individuals
for a long time, and it must end because making
sure banks don't charge you extra fees and things like that.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
Very woke, very woke.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Very woke. Yes, anti corruption, very woke. Look, this is again.
We are in this world where everything up is down
and left is right and anything they don't like is woke.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
And here we are really is the case for uh,
they have a hammer and everything is a nail with
the word.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
That's the woke mind virus to you, baby. Rick Wilson
is the founder of the Lincoln Project and the host
of the Enemy's List Welcome Back, Too Fast Politics, Rick.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Wilson, John, you sound phenomenal. It was good to see this.
Last week.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Yes, Rick and I went to a book festival called
the Rancho Mirage Writers Festival together and we had a
great time.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
We did have a great time. Did not like what we.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Said about him, did not like what we said on stage.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
Somebody was like, send me a message there like, well,
it's your fault because you used to work for like,
for fuck's sake, We've been doing this for a decade now,
and if you'd been there, you would have seen us
spanking him.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Yeah. I mean, he's such an interesting character. Whatever. Let's
not talk about Karl Rove, who cares so, but let's
talk about Republicans dismantling our government. One of the things
I'm struck by is so the Doge project is cutting
billions of dollars of wasteful spending, like research into cancer.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
Obviously cancer being so woke and all woke cancer, wolke cancer,
the woke mind virus. I think we are seeing right
now that it is not yet sunk in at the
state level. What is going to happen here and in
states across the country where there are billions of dollars
of NIH grants that do not go to Antifa or
(10:28):
whatever imaginary demon they have out there. They go to
universities that do the cancer research and the scientific research,
and the physics research and the computer science research that
has made so many people's lives so much better.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
And it's made America great. Let's if we're gonna worry
about American greatness.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
Yeah, if we're going to actually talk about American greatness,
one of the things that made to America great is
that we have great research labs all over this country
doing great work. And once again, isn't some weird fantasy like, oh,
they're all researching lesbian boot Brazilian pan flute music. They
are out there looking for the cures to cancer at
(11:08):
Alzheimer's and everything else. And all those things that happen
at these labs, they are then materially made into research
that goes to pharmaceutical companies and technology companies and healthcare
systems and doctors and nurses and all of it, Every
single bit of it is not about some political agenda.
It's about helping people's lives become better.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Well, it's about science, right, It's about science. So even
if it's not necessarily you know, science, the science that
sends rockets, the science that Elon.
Speaker 5 (11:41):
Uses well, by the way, by the way, by the way,
you know, I have to tell you, Elon Musk directly
benefits every single day, materially benefits from the research that
was done by National Science Foundation grants over and over
and over getting.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Which is why this is such a mind truck.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Well, and look, I am still waiting for the day
and we are starting to hear a little bit of
this now. Like I was following some stuff this morning
about these Georgia soybean farmers who are the reddest of
red states, right, saying things like wait what, we're losing
our what?
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (12:17):
All this money they've made over the years selling soybeans
for overseas markets through aid. Oh my goodness, Suddenly, wo
kid is a good thing?
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, I mean that this is where we are. I mean,
this is sort of the craziest part of it is
that it's.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Just the goofiest timeline.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Yeah. But I mean it's also really worrying. And there's
a real war on their credits, which is scary, right,
I mean that's a real thing. And there is also
a real, you know, war on the truths what little
is left of it. So let's talk about that for
a minute.
Speaker 6 (12:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
Look, I mean, Molly, I think we are right now.
If you're going to play the game that Elon and
Donald and everybody else is playing, you have to have
a contempt for the truth. You have to have a
hatred almost for the truth, because you don't wake up
in the morning and think, hey, we're going to tell
both sides of this lie, and that's going to be
equally valid. It's not equally valid. The lie is the
lie is the lie, and so so much of this
(13:17):
stuff that we're seeing right now. Elon I said, oh,
sixty thousand people took the offer that cuts thirty billion dollars. Well,
the average federal salary is about sixty five thousand dollars,
and sixty five thousand times thirty five thousand is about
three point one billion dollars or somewhere in that neighborhood.
So it's become very Trumpian, it's become very exaggerated and
hyper you know, hyper focused on the on the can
(13:40):
we make the Libs cry harder every minute of the day.
And I just I think we are right now on
a terrible position as a country because for Republicans, the
reflexive defense of Trump on everything has now applied to
Elon as this guy starts to tear apart the things
that they have done in their states and districts. Because
even the most dickhead hate fuederal spending, even ran Paul
(14:05):
Okay every year is saying going home and saying, by
the way, I just got this amazing thing. We're going
to build these three bridges in our district. We're gonna
provide x number of student lunches in our district. Our
state's going to now get a research grant to study
Alzheimer's or whatever it is. And the disconnect right now
between whether Republicans believe in that they that they represent
(14:30):
their constituents anymore is more increasing is increasingly like obvious
to me, they don't and they don't want to.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
They want to.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
They want to please Trump. Yes, yes, my lord, Donald,
only you can save us, blah blah blah, and did
I please you today, my lord? It's crazy, but that
is what it is.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
So one of the things happening right now is we're
getting ready for the Republicans to ignore the courts. That's
what we're seeing online is that the Republicans are trying
to make the case that they shouldn't have to rely
on the courts, that the Cords are not legit because
(15:08):
of one reason or another. One of the things I
love about the sort of brain trust here is that
they're for they'll like sort of jump around, so you'll say,
last night I tweeted about Elon and cancer research, and
Elon was very mad and saw that what are you
talking about? And then his people were like, cancer research
is for cocks.
Speaker 7 (15:29):
You know.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
They were like they couldn't quite message it. So they
were like, he's not doing that, you mainstream media liar, right,
even though like he's.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Delayed, he's absolutely well.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
He's writing about, you know that we're going to cut
the NIH which is cancer research, among other things. And
then his people are like, private companies should do cancer research.
The government has has the cure for cancer. They're just
not letting you know, like the.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Oh, yes, of course, yes.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
The response range was so incredibly shade, and yes, it
was such a big range that it was clear that
they just didn't know how to message it.
Speaker 6 (16:12):
Right.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
No, I don't think they do know how to message it, Molly.
I think that's part of the problem here, is that
they've had a long window where trump Ism was actually
a bit disconnected from real impact in their lives. So
when during COVID, right, there was a connection between the
craziness and the dusts. But now there's a sense, I
(16:33):
think that that they're going to have to go out
there and work hard to spend the damage that's being done.
And this is not about just so everybody's clear on this,
this is not about the size of government or about
government waste. No one literally a constituency for government waste
is zero. There is no one who believes the government
waste is.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Bad or is good?
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Is good government waste?
Speaker 4 (16:54):
Right but right now, what we are seeing from Elon
and company, I think is incrediblely silly and dangerous moment
because nothing about what he's doing comes down to any
sort of sensible approach to governance. And I know that's
really hard for August to accept as that you should
be sensible about things from time to time. I know
(17:14):
how tough that is. Guys, I get it, I really do.
I feel your pain. But they don't want good outcomes.
They want the chaos. They want the destruction. And I
do think by the way, this is sort of a
big theory of the case, but a theory of the case. Nonetheless,
I think Elon and team tech Bro have all convinced
themselves that they're not going to need any of this
(17:34):
research because within a year or a month or however
long they think it is, AI.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Will do everything.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
I think that's part of their thought process here, is
like we can say this is great, and then the
AI will figure it all out for us. It is
a weird and I think semi apocalyptic viewpoint, but I
don't think it's wrong.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Yeah, I think there's certainly a lot of different things
going on here. But I think the real question is
going to be how long does a government function until
this is over? Right?
Speaker 4 (18:03):
Listen, I think I think the government is functioning right
now about like Twitter functions. Now, if you look at
the fact that Elon went and he cut seventy percent
out of Twitter's headcount when he took over, and a
lot of people.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Said, oh, yeah, it needed to be cut.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
It was this, it was that. And if you even
take that point, Okay, let's just take that point for
a second. He didn't make those cuts with a sense
of a plan. He did it because he has a
sort of fetishization cuts being good as a signifier of leadership.
Does that make sense? Yeah, And I think it's a
silly kind of model in a lot of ways, but
(18:37):
it is nonetheless one of his models.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Right. Well, And the question is do the American people
like it or do they not like it? They are
they happy with this? And I don't know that we
know the answer.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Yet, right, I don't think we have the answer yet. Honestly,
I don't. I don't think we have an answer on
that yet because I think part of this is it
we're still in the entertainment phase of this new iteration
of trump Ism. There's still a great joy on the
right that the Libs are being owned. They absolutely couldn't
be happier, how owned the Libs are, how upset people are.
(19:13):
That to my mind is like they love people being upset.
They love people saying oh, please don't cut cancer research
and saying cancers for cooks, Oh drink rail milk, you
won't get cancer, right right right?
Speaker 1 (19:24):
I mean that I think is a big question. There
is a question still of like how much Elon can
do in the federal computers, right.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
I think if you just take the scope of what
the court orders are saying, look at what Elon has done,
and if anyone is comfortable right now that their social
Security number, they're privately identifiable information, all that business is
has somehow been somehow more secure than it was before
a bunch of jacked up in cells when in there
(19:54):
and started rifling through your most intimate files. God bless you,
God bless y.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
So today we saw a lot of It's the show
airs on Monday. On Sunday, we saw all of MAGA
world working this Sunday shows, oh, trying to sell this
all sign right.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
Well, you know, and I got to tell you the
Sunday shows have got to step it up. Margaret Brennan's
on there today on CBS. And you know, you have
this Republican reps and senators and they're asked direct questions
of things they absolutely don't believe, and even when confronted,
they go right back to the well, we were funding
transsexual pan flute bands in Chile. Okay enough, they won't answer. Hey,
(20:38):
by the way, do you think this guy Darren Beattie,
who is a flaming racist of the highest quality, A
guy so racist Elon Musco's ease up their comrade. It
should be in the state Department. Blah blah blah blah.
I don't know him. They know every detail of the
of the usai D budget for South American LGBT spending,
but not who's going to be in the State Department
(20:59):
the fuck out.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
A senator from Alabama, Katie Brett, Young, very smart, quite terrifying,
says that she realizes that we should maybe have a smarter,
more targeted approach to cutting NIH funding. You'll note that
the stage largest employer is in fact a Benny ficiary
(21:24):
of NIH funding, the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
That is a shock, indeed, that Alabama.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
I think one of the things again I go back
to this this idea that Silicon Valley has prospered so
extraordinarily from spending on science and technology, and the Red
States have too. This is what I find so remarkable
is that people like Katie Britt are so effing disingenuous
where now they're thinking, oh God, now what do I
(21:54):
tell my people? You know who was going to benefit
tremendously from the infrastructure bill?
Speaker 3 (21:59):
Red states?
Speaker 4 (22:00):
Red States, they would have a ton of spending that
was going to help them to prosper and to help
them to improve their infrastructure. And trust me, as a
Red state guy, I can tell you one thing. It
is increasingly like living in the fucking third.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
World, right, I mean, well, and again, we don't call
it the third World. We call it the Global South.
Not to be pedantic here because I know, but but
I do think you have a really good point here,
which is that this spending is actually about making the
economy better, also making the infrastructure better. America's had real
(22:33):
infrastructure problems. Now, what I think is interesting is that
this is one of the many ways in which Trump
one point zero has run into trouble with Trump two
point zero. You'll remember and Trump one point.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Zero infrastructure week.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Yes, every week was infrastructure week. Yeah remember that? Yeah,
So I guess now, no more infrastructure weeks.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
No infrastructure weeks for cous molly. Yeah, infrastructure weeks are
for weak cucks. They're for the deep state, human filth.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
I'm me and just insane. So what are you going
to watch this week?
Speaker 4 (23:09):
Well, look, I'm going to watch the way in which
court orders are either obeyed or disobeyed. And I think
that I think that we are very much at the
edge of a constitutional crisis, a precipice that really has
a it's really going to be a moment where we're
going to decide that this country is going to follow
the constitution or whether an entire political party is going
(23:30):
to say, you know what, goodwill will last and let's
go have some fun.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Right, Yeah, that's not good. And give me a minute
on like what you think, like what guardrails there are
still left?
Speaker 3 (23:44):
My dog's thought something.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Yeah, I thought it was fun.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
I think there are three guardrails we always counted on
in this country, principal political opposition, a strong press.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Being dismantled, and the courts right being ignored.
Speaker 4 (23:56):
Right now, there is no action that is being in
the courts to my mind, that is going to be
honored by the Trump administration. I don't think these people
have a single intention to say, yeah, you know what,
we got a federal court order, elon, give us back
those hard drives with everybody's Social Security data on them.
I don't think there's a single chance of that. And look,
(24:19):
there is no honor inside the Republican Party. They do
not care. They care about Donald Trump. They will not
ever cross Donald Trump, but they don't care about anything else.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Right now.
Speaker 4 (24:30):
They are completely oblivious or what not, Well, not oblivious,
they're completely callous in the way that they're treating everything
else in this country. And I think we're in a
lot of trouble because institutions and the media is And
I am not a media basher for the five million
of time, but I think the media has not met
this moment. I think they are still playing the game
(24:51):
of allowing a lot of Trump people to go on
TV and to talk off the record to newspapers, and
they're not presenting with the Americans with a fo implications
and context of what's happening to our country. I think
it is so dangerous right now that we don't have
a press that's willing to go in the briefing room
every day and not say. Some people say Elon Musk
(25:13):
is cutting central government programs, but others say he's cutting
Fuck you go in there and call it out for
what it is. This is a takeover of our government
by insane people, and they are doing things that are
materially harmful to the people of the United States. How
hard is that to understand? That, to my mind, is
(25:33):
one of the great sort of failings we're having as
a nation right right.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
No now, I mean exactly, and I think we're going
to see more of that.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
Rick Wilson Moly John Fast A pleasure as always.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Josh Miller Lewis is the senior director of more Perfect Union.
Welcome to Fast Politics.
Speaker 6 (25:54):
Josh, thanks Molly, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
So first we're going to talk about you are the
what is.
Speaker 6 (26:00):
Your title, senior editorial director at more Perfect Union, but you.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Come from the world of Bernie Sanders, which I think
is important to inform the sort of populist, pro union
wing of the Democratic Party. Is that fair? I feel
like that is narrow, but it's fair.
Speaker 6 (26:19):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
So First, let's talk about this lobbying firm. You shocked
to see that Donald Trump is once again in bed
with lobbyist when we were told that he was too
rich to be corrupted in any way.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
Shocked?
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Shocked?
Speaker 6 (26:36):
Yeah, No, I mean so. I think one of the big,
sort of undercovered pieces of this administration so far right
is their relationship with lobbyists in K Street. And as
you said, trumb on the campaign trail, attack the influence
of lobbyists. He told his followers that lobbyists play a
terrible role in Washington.
Speaker 7 (26:56):
And as soon as he got elected, he named Susie
Wiles as his chief step right. And Susie Wiles comes
from Ballard Partners, big lobbying firm, big Trump backers since
the early days in twenty fifteen. It won't surprise you
that in the days after Trump was elected and after
he named Susie Wiles as his chiefest staff and another
(27:17):
Ballard partner, Ham Bondy as his Attorney general, that corporations
have flocked to Ballard Partners. They have added I believe
the last time I saw forty one new clients since
Trump was elected. And just to give you some context,
I think the next highest firm has added fourteen new
(27:37):
clients in that period. So this is clear that corporate
America sees a path to influence the Trump administration through
Ballard Partners and through the connections that they now.
Speaker 6 (27:48):
Have at the highest levels of the administration. And you know,
I think the firms that have been signing up with
Ballard Partners tell us a little bit about as well,
about out what the key fights are going to be
over the next four years.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Oh that, yes, that is exactly the kind of stuff
that I'm so interested in because I want to know
what are the fights for the next four years. Prayer
hands that he leaves after four years, So tell me.
I'm not even kidding. I'm just sick about this.
Speaker 6 (28:22):
No, I think there's a few things that, like you
start to some of this, you know, we're seeing already
start to play out. But tax cuts obviously is at
the top of the list, right, and Chevron is a
big ballot client. They I think they saved two billion
dollars alone in one year. After the first Trump tax
cuts are put in place in twenty seventeen, they stand
(28:43):
to save, you know, billions and billions of dollars sift
the TOX cuts are extended along with the rest of
corporate America. Crypto is just huge topic over the next
four years. Is a number of crypto companies that signed
up with balot Right, Ripple Labs, Blockchain, and Kraken. They've
all signed up. The Ripple ceo actually met with Trump.
(29:05):
Brad growing House he met with Trump after the election
and Trump said that the US will be the crypto
capital of the planet. And the question of well, what
do they want? Why should we care about crypto? I
don't own any crypto. Well, I think that the crypto
is intent on infiltrating the global financial system. And so
(29:26):
whether you own crypto or not, I think you have
to be concerned that this asset that is really not
based in anything meaningful, that is really just used for
fraud and scams. That they were prosecuted during the proNT
during the Biden administration for rampant fraud and obviously stand
(29:47):
Making Free is the highest profile example of that this
asset could your your retirement savings, your four oh one
K could end up ultimately being tied to this bubble
that could collapse at any moment. But in the meantime
they stand to get very, very wealthy in their very
intent on influencing the direction of the Trump administration. Tariff's
(30:07):
is obviously another huge issue. Right number of big importers
have signed up with Ballard over the last couple of months.
And the thing that I you know, there's this whole
debate around tarifs, but the thing that I think is
not getting enough attention is there was a study after
the last Trump administration that found that companies that had
(30:30):
ties to Republican lobbying firms got more tariff exemptions from
the Trump administration than any other company. There's an enormous
amount of corruption that's happening within these tariffs that are
where the Trump administration in the first term at least
was dolling out favors to companies that were associated with
(30:53):
the Republican Party. And I fully expect that that same
thing will play out in this administration. And I think
we have to look hard at sort of the corruption
that that is happening again as a result of the
connection between Trump and big lobbying firms. And then last,
the last thing to highlight is another consumer protection piece,
the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has played an enormously
(31:17):
important role in saving millions of Americans' money and protecting
them from corporate scams. This is they have been a
big target by Zuckerberg, by Mark Andresen. And there's a
number of firms under disguise of dbanking, which we could
talk about more firms that are are signing up with
Ballard and are ultimately interested in, in Elon Musk's words,
(31:39):
deleting the CFPB.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Right, No, I mean for sure that these are all
really interesting. The cutouts for tariffs, we saw that a
lot in Trump one point zero and Trump two point zero.
They said they weren't going to have cutouts for tariffs, right.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
L L Yeah, we'll see.
Speaker 6 (31:57):
But you know, there's there's a reason I think that
Tim Cook and Jeff Bezos and all of these people
who are heavily reliant on producing stuff in China are
all of a sudden big bands of Donald Trump, right.
And famously, Apple got huge cut out carveouts in the first.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Yeah, for the iPhone, and that seems really like an
important point. And again this goes into this cleptocracy thing, right,
picking winners and losers. Trump Ism is an embraceive crony capitalism,
and the gas company is super interesting. Donald Trump is
funded though by Elon Musk. Right, Elon Musk made billions
(32:36):
of dollars in climate change subsidies because irony is alive,
and well, how does this not collide? Right, Donald Trump
is in the pocket of the oil company. He's always
has been, right, we had Rex Tillerson and the first
Trump admin did not even try to hide it. So
explain to me the tension there and how you see
(32:58):
that playing at tension between the tension between Elon and Exon.
Speaker 6 (33:03):
Yeah, it's an interesting thing, But I mean, I think
there's some interesting things going on though with Tesla. Obviously,
Tesla benefited enormously, as you were saying, from you know,
carbon tax credits and that that sort of regime. Right,
They've sort of built a huge part of their business
and their revenue on trading like carbon tax credits. But
(33:27):
I also think in some ways Tesla has benefited the
least of all the electric car companies from the inflation
reduction app that Biden passed and this move to promote
electric vehicles. They've lost an enormous amount of market share
over the last couple of years as other companies like
Hyundai and US companies like GM have ramped up their
(33:49):
electric vehicle output and started to produce better cars. And
I do think that Elon and Tesla to some extent
have an intro in undermining the progress that was made
by the RA because they had such a strong foothold
already in this market. The competition is actually ultimately bad
(34:12):
for Tesla.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Right, Yeah, so Elon has Tesla, he has SpaceX, he
has Twitter. Whatever. That's I think kind of a rounding error.
But I wonder if you can explain to us, you know,
there are a lot of different things in the case
and how Elon is sort of functioning in this Trump government.
But part of it, right, is that he's there for
(34:34):
his companies, right. Part of it is that he's there
for power or part of But if he has all
these companies, and he does have a vested interest, and
we have all of these different players all who have
vested interests, right, So, and you talked about this before.
Tim Cook wants car Vattes for China, and you know,
you have Andreas and Horowitz has a bunch of portfolio companies.
They're just everybody has these different instant different you know,
(34:57):
they're all sort of trying to curry favor with the
ma King in order to get what they want because
Trump is very transactional. So what do you think and
since you sort of know all these companies Elon is
doing in the federal government, because you know, from what
I understand for the people I know who used to
know him well, of which I know one person, my
(35:18):
sense is that he cares the most about his companies.
I mean also his weird political stuff, but his companies.
So my question is, what do you think the sort
of goal there is.
Speaker 6 (35:29):
Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I think all
you have to do to understand this is look at
the agencies that he's going after, and recently came out
right that he the Department of Labor is his next
target with do Oche, and you look at the labor
violations that his companies have had over the years. There's
been workers who die building a Tesla gigafactory at Osha investigated.
(35:52):
You have Tesla, which has been notoriously anti union. Mosque
has talked about how he doesn't believe in unions when
they have fired where workers for unionizing, They've come under
fire from the NLRB. SpaceX has also been under fire
for labor violations, a total lack of regard for environmental regulations,
(36:12):
and you know, really, I think negatively impacted the community
in Texas that they operate in. You don't see him
going after the Defense Department where he gets you know,
billions and billions of dollars in contracts from for SpaceX
and Starlink. You don't see him going after the agencies
that ultimately are very beneficial to his business and those contracts.
(36:35):
But he is intent on tearing down, you know, important
parts of the federal government that defend workers, that encourage unionization,
to make sure workers are and it's it's I think,
clearly ultimately to benefit his company. And you know, I'll
say this too. I don't think it's just Elon Musk.
(36:56):
I think all of this sort of tech billion airs
and major chech corporations that are involved in the Trump
administration are engaged in a similar effort. They want their
piece of the pie, and they want to strip away
the important parts of the federal government that stop sort
(37:18):
of their rule breaking, in fraud and lawlessness, and they
see this as their opportunity. With Trump, we're.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Into Lena Khan world. And I want you and I
to talk about Lena Khan because Lena Khan has made
all the very rich people very mad. This is like,
I feel like a great moment from the Biden administration.
Here is the most important probably person in the admin
in certain ways. Right, She's a trustbuster. She has made
(37:45):
everyone furious with her who's wealthy, and in the end,
the people who would have benefited from what she's doing
didn't even know she was there. So make us understand.
Because you come from world Bernie, I think was the
last time that Democrats were able to connect with populism,
(38:07):
despite the fact that their legislation is almost entirely populist.
So make it make sense why they can't, how they
could and anything else we want to talk on this
topic about.
Speaker 6 (38:19):
Yeah, I think one of the things that populists need
to do, and I think Lena Conda quite well was.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
Root her effort and her.
Speaker 6 (38:28):
Work in the fights and the issues that millions of
working class people are concerned about. You look at her
efforts around housing, efforts to take on big corporate landlords
or this wasn't her who was DOJ and Cantor, but
efforts to take on companies like Real Page incredibly powerful
(38:49):
work that was rooted in essential an issue that millions
and millions of people are concerned about in this country,
housing affordability. And you're totally right that it is. It's
so painful to me that one of I really think
one of the most effective communicators and someone in the
administration who was engaged in some of the most important
(39:10):
fights in this country taking on big tech companies that
have become increasingly powerful. And you heard Joe Biden talk
about in his farewell speech. She didn't get the sort
of attention that it deserved. She wasn't uplifted by the
president on a daily basis. The fights that she was
engaged in were sort of relegated to the background. And
I think that if you're going to build a populist movement,
(39:35):
we can learn a lot from the sorts of fights
in the ways that Lena Khan engaged during the administration.
But it is really important that we talk about that
that it is front and center that the fights with
corporate America on behalf of working families are centered in
(39:56):
our politics and not something that we try to hide
too often. I feel like Democrats are afraid of that tension.
They're afraid to have a fight, and the fights are
what animate and tell people what we care about. They're
so important to helping people understand what side the Democratic
Party is on, who we're fighting for, and what we're
(40:19):
fighting for. And Trump does this every single day and
it's incredibly effective. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
That's my real question is when you're looking at these
you know, there's almost populous legislation, right, I mean that's
what it is. You know, a lot of populous legislation
boost up the economy. Really, you know, sort of writed
a lot of the mistakes from two thousand and eight. Yeah,
but could not or would not transmit any of that
(40:47):
to the American people.
Speaker 6 (40:48):
Yeah. No, we obviously suffered from an inability to communicate
what we were trying to do, and fundamentally, I think
outline a vision for what we want America to look like,
who we care about, the ways in which the system
is broken, and how we were attempting to fix it.
(41:10):
I just don't I'm not sure. I do think that
there was a vision in an ideology that was attached
to a lot of the progress that President Biden made,
but it was not communicated to people. And I think
going forward, as we think about, you know, how we
respond to Trump and how we sort of rebuild the
Democratic Party, we need to do more than just reject
(41:33):
what Trump has to say. We need to actually build
an agenda that engages in the most important fights and
outlines a vision for the American people about what the
core issues are the Democratic Party stands out. I think
if we're just in this resistance mode, if we're just
(41:55):
in it reject everything Trump does if he's bad, sure
we might be able to win in four years, but
are we going to actually be able to rebuild a
working class coalition that can win elections in eight years
in twelve years? I don't think so. I think there
has to be some real sort of agenda setting and
(42:16):
we need to reckon with why the Democratic Party has
lost working class people over the last twenty years.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
Yes, one hundred percent. And also again they voted for
the guy who wanted to do tax cuts for billionaires
because they thought he'd be better for workers. So like,
obviously something is going terribly wrong here, right, I mean.
Speaker 6 (42:45):
Well, I think fundamentally though, Like, what it's really about
is people are pissed off with the status quo. I
really don't think that it's about Donald Trump in particular.
Starting in two thousand and eight, basically people were frustrated
with the status quo and wanted something fundamentally different, and
they elected Democrats and a landslide right twenty twelve of
them was able to hold on, But then you have
(43:07):
another rejection in twenty sixteen, another rejection in twenty twenty,
and then another rejection in twenty twenty four. We just
keep swinging on this pendulum, and the same thing is
playing out all over the world right where incumbents are losing.
The economic system has been broken now at least since
two thousand and eight. People want something different, They want
some sort of change. Neither party is offering that to them.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
I just would add, I think you're right for sure,
But if you look at like government spending around social
safety net, one party did give it to them. I
mean again, wealth and equality, you know, we just not rising.
Inflation is the mind fucked and all mind fucks Like
I get it. I know what it's like to pay
(43:50):
you know, one hundred dollars more a week on groceries
or a month on groceries. I mean, I get it,
but I'm just saying that, like, if you look at
the numbers, perception is real reality.
Speaker 6 (44:00):
Right, Yes, I agree with you. And this gets back
to what we were talking about earlier, right, And like
how do you brain your politics? How do you communicate
your politics? Do you engage in fights or do you
shy away from them? I think that that all contributes
to it. There's no question you're right that the Democratic
Party has done a lot and has tried to fight
for working people.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
But it doesn't matter. If you can't transmit, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 6 (44:24):
Josh.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
I hope you will come back. This as really really
interesting for sure.
Speaker 6 (44:28):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
No moment, Jesse Cannon.
Speaker 3 (44:37):
Molly Jung Fast.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
So we are seeing a lot of officials say fuck
off to Trump, trying to get them out of their seats,
and the latest is the FEC commissioner Ellen Wintrump, who's
considering her options after being ousted by Trump.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
You know what part of this is that Trump doesn't
have the authority to do any of this extracurricular stuff.
He's not a king. He's part of the government and
now is I think a really important point here is
that we are really seeing like their right to not
do that. They're right to not let him go crazy
on stuff. So Ellen Wintrapp, she was put on this
(45:15):
bipartisan commission by George W. Bush. Woke George W. Bush Thursday.
She was fired by a brief letter. At least it
wasn't a tweet. She shared a copy of the letter
on X and she said, there's a legal way to
replace the FEC commissioner. This isn't it. I've been lucky
to serve the American people again. Look, this is this
idea that trump Ism wants to weaponize every part of
(45:39):
the federal government to protect Trump. And this should not
surprise anyone. This is what they do, right, This is
what they told us they were going to do, and
this is what they're doing. And none of us should
be surprised. And everyone is going to have to keep going.
Everyone is going to have to fight against this. There's
absolutely no reason that anyone should let this happen because
(46:03):
it's not right and it's not what they were elected
for and it's not constitutional. That's it for this episode
of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and
Saturday to hear the best minds and politics make sense
of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast, please
(46:25):
send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Thanks for listening.
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds. And Attorney General Pam Bondi has shuddered
the FBI's Foreign Interference Act. They just don't want to
know about it. We have such a great show for
you today. The Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson joins us
(00:23):
to discuss Trump's voters learning about his agenda in real time.
Then we'll talk to more perfect unions. Josh Miller lewis
about the lobbying firm funneling massive influence into Donald Trump's
White House. But first the.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
News Smiley federal employees say they had to justify their
existence to Doege College freshmen in fifteen minute interviews. This
is a common thing when private equity comes in. I
remember there was this documentary about when Bain came to town,
you know, and McKinsey time that this is what they do.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
End.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Well, we're now seeing that culture spread to the US government.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yeah. Elon has decided that he is going to make
the government efficient. I want to pause for a minute
and just talk about efficiency. What is efficiency? So efficiency
is in Elon Musk's mind. What he did to X right,
he took out the things, the bells and whistles, the
things that he felt didn't add to it. So now
(01:26):
you get spam and now you sometimes the messages go down,
but you know it ultimately works, but it works not
as well as it used to. This is sort of
I think, his hope for the federal government. But what
I think you have to realize about this, And we
saw this play out in real time right today when
he was tweeting against me. Was like, I said, you know,
(01:47):
it's the richest man in the world cutting cancer research,
and he was like, no, I'm not. And here's the thing.
He's cutting part of the National Institute of Health, right,
and it's considered to be overhead. But overhead is like
leaning the labs and renting the space and paying for
the scientists. Like this is overhead. And the idea here
(02:08):
is when you start messing with grants, you start messing
with research, and there's less money for research. Now you
might have an argument that the government shouldn't be funding
cancer research. I would say that is really so stupid,
but you could, you know, you could go down this
path of what does the government do. But it really
isn't up to the richest man in the world, despite
(02:30):
how rich he is, to decide what the government should
and should not do. Right, We elected people to do
that job, and they are not doing it because and
I think this is really important when you think about
the Republicans in Congress right now, they couldn't legislate this,
and so they're just doing it anyway. And there is
(02:51):
not a public appetite for less cancer research. There is
not a public right. There's just not People aren't like, oh,
people were just doing too well with our cancer treatments here.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
I would love to just see people in my life
die because the richest man on earth wants to pay
less taxes.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Well, And it's also just like even if you ideologically
believe that the government should be smaller, I mean, we
talk about this so much when we talk about Project
twenty twenty five, right, Project twenty twenty five, the Grand
Plan to dismantle the administrative state, to end government oversight,
but also to end you know, the things that nobody
really wants to end, right, cancer research, that kind of
(03:29):
stuff because it's expensive and because they don't really feel
the government should be paying for that stuff. So when
you go down that rabbit hole, the question is where
does it end? And then also if it's not being
done by elected people, but it's just being done by
random rich people, how is that constitutionally okay? And how
is that legal? And why even have elected officials right
(03:50):
if they are not allowed to control the power of
the purse, if they are not legislating, I mean, what
are they even doing? Like, and so we're watching here.
Besides the fact is very scary because there will be
a lot of government services lost, and that will be
things like you know, healthcare for veterans, science. I mean,
you'll see people in red states where the university is
(04:13):
the big employer in the state suddenly panicking because there
will be job lost, there will be financial ruin, there
will be you know this all this will actually trickle up,
believe it or not, to billionaires eventually, but it will
also trickle up to the people who are elected to handle.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
This crashes the economy, which has a lot of potential aduces.
These are people are high value spenders of the economy, right,
and they're.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Also remember like you lose these scientists, they don't come back.
I mean, that's the brain drain. Question, right, like, what
does it look like to lose scientists? What does any
of this look like? And so, I mean, that's what
we're setting ourselves up for. So this is the accelerationist
case for trump Ism, is that, like, it's better to
have him crash and burn now than to slowly lash
(05:00):
the federal government the way of John Roberts might. But
I mean, I'm not convinced that there's any good coming
from any of this.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
So a federal judge, though, has blocked Doze from accessing
Treasury Department records after nineteen States of sued Trump after
nineteen states of sued Trump's administration for this, But it
also has come with a lot of Elon having rage tweets.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
What's important to realize here is that none of this
is legal. Just because Elon is very rich doesn't mean
he gets to just completely rewrite the way we do government.
And what is important about this story is that we
have these Democratic attorneys generals And remember this summer, Jesse
and I interviewed one of them who was talking to
(05:44):
us before we were reporting about how they were ready
because they really thought that the Democrat was going to
lose and that Trump was going to win again. And
that was why these blue state attorney generals were getting
together and planning the lawsuits that they were going to
have to file. They were really organized to fight back
against a lot of this stuff. And that's what we're
(06:04):
seeing here. So, look, this judge ruled against Elon and
doage because it's not okay. Now what's going to happen
now is that you know, Muscus is tweeting against him
and saying he's a corrupt judge protecting corruption. And again
this is like really important here. Part of the double speak,
(06:26):
the sort of Orwellian double speak that these people engage in,
is this idea that you know, if you are against this,
then you are for corruption, that you're if you're against
because this is all about how they're going to make
the government more efficient. And if you're against efficiency, then
your four waste. It's not true and also it's not correct.
(06:50):
And also it's just completely not right. And so that's
what I would say is like, don't do not, do
not do not into this, do not trust it. And
also like this judge is doing the right thing because
this is illegal. So now are they trying to set
the table to ignore the court order? Very possibly. I
(07:13):
think that's very likely.
Speaker 2 (07:14):
They're definitely trying to establish a culture of that being okay.
On Twitter through Vans and Charlie Kirk tweets yep.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
This judge said that it's not okay. But you know,
it's interesting. I mean. The other thing that's really interesting
a lot of the laws that are being used to
correct this corruption or to fight this corruption, or laws
that were put in place after Nixon. So we have
this violation of the Privacy Act of nineteen seventy four,
that's another one of these, after the Empowerment Act, another
(07:43):
one of these post Nicksonian reforms, and then the Tax
Will Reform Act of nineteen seventy six, as well as
other laws. The lawsuits are used also that don't access
poses security risks, and you and I both know that
these guys are all like, very young, these hackers. One
got fire for not respecting privacy at a different job.
One tweeted racist stuff. I mean, there's a pretty good
(08:06):
case for why the people who are messing with all
of our computers should have some kind of security clearance.
Speaker 3 (08:15):
Yeah. Fun stuff.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
So one of the first actions of O and B
director Russell Vought is to get rid of the CFPB.
I see just earlier today he tweeted that it is
a woke and weaponized agency against disfavored industries and individuals
for a long time, and it must end because making
sure banks don't charge you extra fees and things like that.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
Very woke, very woke.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Very woke. Yes, anti corruption, very woke. Look, this is again.
We are in this world where everything up is down
and left is right and anything they don't like is woke.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
And here we are really is the case for uh,
they have a hammer and everything is a nail with
the word.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
That's the woke mind virus to you, baby. Rick Wilson
is the founder of the Lincoln Project and the host
of the Enemy's List Welcome Back, Too Fast Politics, Rick.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Wilson, John, you sound phenomenal. It was good to see this.
Last week.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Yes, Rick and I went to a book festival called
the Rancho Mirage Writers Festival together and we had a
great time.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
We did have a great time. Did not like what we.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Said about him, did not like what we said on stage.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
Somebody was like, send me a message there like, well,
it's your fault because you used to work for like,
for fuck's sake, We've been doing this for a decade now,
and if you'd been there, you would have seen us
spanking him.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Yeah. I mean, he's such an interesting character. Whatever. Let's
not talk about Karl Rove, who cares so, but let's
talk about Republicans dismantling our government. One of the things
I'm struck by is so the Doge project is cutting
billions of dollars of wasteful spending, like research into cancer.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
Obviously cancer being so woke and all woke cancer, wolke cancer,
the woke mind virus. I think we are seeing right
now that it is not yet sunk in at the
state level. What is going to happen here and in
states across the country where there are billions of dollars
of NIH grants that do not go to Antifa or
(10:28):
whatever imaginary demon they have out there. They go to
universities that do the cancer research and the scientific research,
and the physics research and the computer science research that
has made so many people's lives so much better.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
And it's made America great. Let's if we're gonna worry
about American greatness.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
Yeah, if we're going to actually talk about American greatness,
one of the things that made to America great is
that we have great research labs all over this country
doing great work. And once again, isn't some weird fantasy like, oh,
they're all researching lesbian boot Brazilian pan flute music. They
are out there looking for the cures to cancer at
(11:08):
Alzheimer's and everything else. And all those things that happen
at these labs, they are then materially made into research
that goes to pharmaceutical companies and technology companies and healthcare
systems and doctors and nurses and all of it, Every
single bit of it is not about some political agenda.
It's about helping people's lives become better.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Well, it's about science, right, It's about science. So even
if it's not necessarily you know, science, the science that
sends rockets, the science that Elon.
Speaker 5 (11:41):
Uses well, by the way, by the way, by the way,
you know, I have to tell you, Elon Musk directly
benefits every single day, materially benefits from the research that
was done by National Science Foundation grants over and over
and over getting.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Which is why this is such a mind truck.
Speaker 3 (12:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Well, and look, I am still waiting for the day
and we are starting to hear a little bit of
this now. Like I was following some stuff this morning
about these Georgia soybean farmers who are the reddest of
red states, right, saying things like wait what, we're losing
our what?
Speaker 1 (12:17):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (12:17):
All this money they've made over the years selling soybeans
for overseas markets through aid. Oh my goodness, Suddenly, wo
kid is a good thing?
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, I mean that this is where we are. I mean,
this is sort of the craziest part of it is
that it's.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Just the goofiest timeline.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
Yeah. But I mean it's also really worrying. And there's
a real war on their credits, which is scary, right,
I mean that's a real thing. And there is also
a real, you know, war on the truths what little
is left of it. So let's talk about that for
a minute.
Speaker 6 (12:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (12:55):
Look, I mean, Molly, I think we are right now.
If you're going to play the game that Elon and
Donald and everybody else is playing, you have to have
a contempt for the truth. You have to have a
hatred almost for the truth, because you don't wake up
in the morning and think, hey, we're going to tell
both sides of this lie, and that's going to be
equally valid. It's not equally valid. The lie is the
lie is the lie, and so so much of this
(13:17):
stuff that we're seeing right now. Elon I said, oh,
sixty thousand people took the offer that cuts thirty billion dollars. Well,
the average federal salary is about sixty five thousand dollars,
and sixty five thousand times thirty five thousand is about
three point one billion dollars or somewhere in that neighborhood.
So it's become very Trumpian, it's become very exaggerated and
hyper you know, hyper focused on the on the can
(13:40):
we make the Libs cry harder every minute of the day.
And I just I think we are right now on
a terrible position as a country because for Republicans, the
reflexive defense of Trump on everything has now applied to
Elon as this guy starts to tear apart the things
that they have done in their states and districts. Because
even the most dickhead hate fuederal spending, even ran Paul
(14:05):
Okay every year is saying going home and saying, by
the way, I just got this amazing thing. We're going
to build these three bridges in our district. We're gonna
provide x number of student lunches in our district. Our
state's going to now get a research grant to study
Alzheimer's or whatever it is. And the disconnect right now
between whether Republicans believe in that they that they represent
(14:30):
their constituents anymore is more increasing is increasingly like obvious
to me, they don't and they don't want to.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
They want to.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
They want to please Trump. Yes, yes, my lord, Donald,
only you can save us, blah blah blah, and did
I please you today, my lord? It's crazy, but that
is what it is.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
So one of the things happening right now is we're
getting ready for the Republicans to ignore the courts. That's
what we're seeing online is that the Republicans are trying
to make the case that they shouldn't have to rely
on the courts, that the Cords are not legit because
(15:08):
of one reason or another. One of the things I
love about the sort of brain trust here is that
they're for they'll like sort of jump around, so you'll say,
last night I tweeted about Elon and cancer research, and
Elon was very mad and saw that what are you
talking about? And then his people were like, cancer research
is for cocks.
Speaker 7 (15:29):
You know.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
They were like they couldn't quite message it. So they
were like, he's not doing that, you mainstream media liar, right,
even though like he's.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Delayed, he's absolutely well.
Speaker 1 (15:40):
He's writing about, you know that we're going to cut
the NIH which is cancer research, among other things. And
then his people are like, private companies should do cancer research.
The government has has the cure for cancer. They're just
not letting you know, like the.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Oh, yes, of course, yes.
Speaker 1 (15:59):
The response range was so incredibly shade, and yes, it
was such a big range that it was clear that
they just didn't know how to message it.
Speaker 6 (16:12):
Right.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
No, I don't think they do know how to message it, Molly.
I think that's part of the problem here, is that
they've had a long window where trump Ism was actually
a bit disconnected from real impact in their lives. So
when during COVID, right, there was a connection between the
craziness and the dusts. But now there's a sense, I
(16:33):
think that that they're going to have to go out
there and work hard to spend the damage that's being done.
And this is not about just so everybody's clear on this,
this is not about the size of government or about
government waste. No one literally a constituency for government waste
is zero. There is no one who believes the government
waste is.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
Bad or is good?
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Is good government waste?
Speaker 4 (16:54):
Right but right now, what we are seeing from Elon
and company, I think is incrediblely silly and dangerous moment
because nothing about what he's doing comes down to any
sort of sensible approach to governance. And I know that's
really hard for August to accept as that you should
be sensible about things from time to time. I know
(17:14):
how tough that is. Guys, I get it, I really do.
I feel your pain. But they don't want good outcomes.
They want the chaos. They want the destruction. And I
do think by the way, this is sort of a
big theory of the case, but a theory of the case. Nonetheless,
I think Elon and team tech Bro have all convinced
themselves that they're not going to need any of this
(17:34):
research because within a year or a month or however
long they think it is, AI.
Speaker 3 (17:40):
Will do everything.
Speaker 4 (17:41):
I think that's part of their thought process here, is
like we can say this is great, and then the
AI will figure it all out for us. It is
a weird and I think semi apocalyptic viewpoint, but I
don't think it's wrong.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Yeah, I think there's certainly a lot of different things
going on here. But I think the real question is
going to be how long does a government function until
this is over? Right?
Speaker 4 (18:03):
Listen, I think I think the government is functioning right
now about like Twitter functions. Now, if you look at
the fact that Elon went and he cut seventy percent
out of Twitter's headcount when he took over, and a
lot of people.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
Said, oh, yeah, it needed to be cut.
Speaker 4 (18:15):
It was this, it was that. And if you even
take that point, Okay, let's just take that point for
a second. He didn't make those cuts with a sense
of a plan. He did it because he has a
sort of fetishization cuts being good as a signifier of leadership.
Does that make sense? Yeah, And I think it's a
silly kind of model in a lot of ways, but
(18:37):
it is nonetheless one of his models.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Right. Well, And the question is do the American people
like it or do they not like it? They are
they happy with this? And I don't know that we
know the answer.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Yet, right, I don't think we have the answer yet. Honestly,
I don't. I don't think we have an answer on
that yet because I think part of this is it
we're still in the entertainment phase of this new iteration
of trump Ism. There's still a great joy on the
right that the Libs are being owned. They absolutely couldn't
be happier, how owned the Libs are, how upset people are.
(19:13):
That to my mind is like they love people being upset.
They love people saying oh, please don't cut cancer research
and saying cancers for cooks, Oh drink rail milk, you
won't get cancer, right right right?
Speaker 1 (19:24):
I mean that I think is a big question. There
is a question still of like how much Elon can
do in the federal computers, right.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
I think if you just take the scope of what
the court orders are saying, look at what Elon has done,
and if anyone is comfortable right now that their social
Security number, they're privately identifiable information, all that business is
has somehow been somehow more secure than it was before
a bunch of jacked up in cells when in there
(19:54):
and started rifling through your most intimate files. God bless you,
God bless y.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
So today we saw a lot of It's the show
airs on Monday. On Sunday, we saw all of MAGA
world working this Sunday shows, oh, trying to sell this
all sign right.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
Well, you know, and I got to tell you the
Sunday shows have got to step it up. Margaret Brennan's
on there today on CBS. And you know, you have
this Republican reps and senators and they're asked direct questions
of things they absolutely don't believe, and even when confronted,
they go right back to the well, we were funding
transsexual pan flute bands in Chile. Okay enough, they won't answer. Hey,
(20:38):
by the way, do you think this guy Darren Beattie,
who is a flaming racist of the highest quality, A
guy so racist Elon Musco's ease up their comrade. It
should be in the state Department. Blah blah blah blah.
I don't know him. They know every detail of the
of the usai D budget for South American LGBT spending,
but not who's going to be in the State Department
(20:59):
the fuck out.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
A senator from Alabama, Katie Brett, Young, very smart, quite terrifying,
says that she realizes that we should maybe have a smarter,
more targeted approach to cutting NIH funding. You'll note that
the stage largest employer is in fact a Benny ficiary
(21:24):
of NIH funding, the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
That is a shock, indeed, that Alabama.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
I think one of the things again I go back
to this this idea that Silicon Valley has prospered so
extraordinarily from spending on science and technology, and the Red
States have too. This is what I find so remarkable
is that people like Katie Britt are so effing disingenuous
where now they're thinking, oh God, now what do I
(21:54):
tell my people? You know who was going to benefit
tremendously from the infrastructure bill?
Speaker 3 (21:59):
Red states?
Speaker 4 (22:00):
Red States, they would have a ton of spending that
was going to help them to prosper and to help
them to improve their infrastructure. And trust me, as a
Red state guy, I can tell you one thing. It
is increasingly like living in the fucking third.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
World, right, I mean, well, and again, we don't call
it the third World. We call it the Global South.
Not to be pedantic here because I know, but but
I do think you have a really good point here,
which is that this spending is actually about making the
economy better, also making the infrastructure better. America's had real
(22:33):
infrastructure problems. Now, what I think is interesting is that
this is one of the many ways in which Trump
one point zero has run into trouble with Trump two
point zero. You'll remember and Trump one point.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Zero infrastructure week.
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Yes, every week was infrastructure week. Yeah remember that? Yeah,
So I guess now, no more infrastructure weeks.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
No infrastructure weeks for cous molly. Yeah, infrastructure weeks are
for weak cucks. They're for the deep state, human filth.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
I'm me and just insane. So what are you going
to watch this week?
Speaker 4 (23:09):
Well, look, I'm going to watch the way in which
court orders are either obeyed or disobeyed. And I think
that I think that we are very much at the
edge of a constitutional crisis, a precipice that really has
a it's really going to be a moment where we're
going to decide that this country is going to follow
the constitution or whether an entire political party is going
(23:30):
to say, you know what, goodwill will last and let's
go have some fun.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Right, Yeah, that's not good. And give me a minute
on like what you think, like what guardrails there are
still left?
Speaker 3 (23:44):
My dog's thought something.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Yeah, I thought it was fun.
Speaker 4 (23:47):
I think there are three guardrails we always counted on
in this country, principal political opposition, a strong press.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
Being dismantled, and the courts right being ignored.
Speaker 4 (23:56):
Right now, there is no action that is being in
the courts to my mind, that is going to be
honored by the Trump administration. I don't think these people
have a single intention to say, yeah, you know what,
we got a federal court order, elon, give us back
those hard drives with everybody's Social Security data on them.
I don't think there's a single chance of that. And look,
(24:19):
there is no honor inside the Republican Party. They do
not care. They care about Donald Trump. They will not
ever cross Donald Trump, but they don't care about anything else.
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Right now.
Speaker 4 (24:30):
They are completely oblivious or what not, Well, not oblivious,
they're completely callous in the way that they're treating everything
else in this country. And I think we're in a
lot of trouble because institutions and the media is And
I am not a media basher for the five million
of time, but I think the media has not met
this moment. I think they are still playing the game
(24:51):
of allowing a lot of Trump people to go on
TV and to talk off the record to newspapers, and
they're not presenting with the Americans with a fo implications
and context of what's happening to our country. I think
it is so dangerous right now that we don't have
a press that's willing to go in the briefing room
every day and not say. Some people say Elon Musk
(25:13):
is cutting central government programs, but others say he's cutting
Fuck you go in there and call it out for
what it is. This is a takeover of our government
by insane people, and they are doing things that are
materially harmful to the people of the United States. How
hard is that to understand? That, to my mind, is
(25:33):
one of the great sort of failings we're having as
a nation right right.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
No now, I mean exactly, and I think we're going
to see more of that.
Speaker 4 (25:42):
Rick Wilson Moly John Fast A pleasure as always.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
Josh Miller Lewis is the senior director of more Perfect Union.
Welcome to Fast Politics.
Speaker 6 (25:54):
Josh, thanks Molly, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
So first we're going to talk about you are the
what is.
Speaker 6 (26:00):
Your title, senior editorial director at more Perfect Union, but you.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Come from the world of Bernie Sanders, which I think
is important to inform the sort of populist, pro union
wing of the Democratic Party. Is that fair? I feel
like that is narrow, but it's fair.
Speaker 6 (26:19):
Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
So First, let's talk about this lobbying firm. You shocked
to see that Donald Trump is once again in bed
with lobbyist when we were told that he was too
rich to be corrupted in any way.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
Shocked?
Speaker 1 (26:35):
Shocked?
Speaker 6 (26:36):
Yeah, No, I mean so. I think one of the big,
sort of undercovered pieces of this administration so far right
is their relationship with lobbyists in K Street. And as
you said, trumb on the campaign trail, attack the influence
of lobbyists. He told his followers that lobbyists play a
terrible role in Washington.
Speaker 7 (26:56):
And as soon as he got elected, he named Susie
Wiles as his chief step right. And Susie Wiles comes
from Ballard Partners, big lobbying firm, big Trump backers since
the early days in twenty fifteen. It won't surprise you
that in the days after Trump was elected and after
he named Susie Wiles as his chiefest staff and another
(27:17):
Ballard partner, Ham Bondy as his Attorney general, that corporations
have flocked to Ballard Partners. They have added I believe
the last time I saw forty one new clients since
Trump was elected. And just to give you some context,
I think the next highest firm has added fourteen new
(27:37):
clients in that period. So this is clear that corporate
America sees a path to influence the Trump administration through
Ballard Partners and through the connections that they now.
Speaker 6 (27:48):
Have at the highest levels of the administration. And you know,
I think the firms that have been signing up with
Ballard Partners tell us a little bit about as well,
about out what the key fights are going to be
over the next four years.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Oh that, yes, that is exactly the kind of stuff
that I'm so interested in because I want to know
what are the fights for the next four years. Prayer
hands that he leaves after four years, So tell me.
I'm not even kidding. I'm just sick about this.
Speaker 6 (28:22):
No, I think there's a few things that, like you
start to some of this, you know, we're seeing already
start to play out. But tax cuts obviously is at
the top of the list, right, and Chevron is a
big ballot client. They I think they saved two billion
dollars alone in one year. After the first Trump tax
cuts are put in place in twenty seventeen, they stand
(28:43):
to save, you know, billions and billions of dollars sift
the TOX cuts are extended along with the rest of
corporate America. Crypto is just huge topic over the next
four years. Is a number of crypto companies that signed
up with balot Right, Ripple Labs, Blockchain, and Kraken. They've
all signed up. The Ripple ceo actually met with Trump.
(29:05):
Brad growing House he met with Trump after the election
and Trump said that the US will be the crypto
capital of the planet. And the question of well, what
do they want? Why should we care about crypto? I
don't own any crypto. Well, I think that the crypto
is intent on infiltrating the global financial system. And so
(29:26):
whether you own crypto or not, I think you have
to be concerned that this asset that is really not
based in anything meaningful, that is really just used for
fraud and scams. That they were prosecuted during the proNT
during the Biden administration for rampant fraud and obviously stand
(29:47):
Making Free is the highest profile example of that this
asset could your your retirement savings, your four oh one
K could end up ultimately being tied to this bubble
that could collapse at any moment. But in the meantime
they stand to get very, very wealthy in their very
intent on influencing the direction of the Trump administration. Tariff's
(30:07):
is obviously another huge issue. Right number of big importers
have signed up with Ballard over the last couple of months.
And the thing that I you know, there's this whole
debate around tarifs, but the thing that I think is
not getting enough attention is there was a study after
the last Trump administration that found that companies that had
(30:30):
ties to Republican lobbying firms got more tariff exemptions from
the Trump administration than any other company. There's an enormous
amount of corruption that's happening within these tariffs that are
where the Trump administration in the first term at least
was dolling out favors to companies that were associated with
(30:53):
the Republican Party. And I fully expect that that same
thing will play out in this administration. And I think
we have to look hard at sort of the corruption
that that is happening again as a result of the
connection between Trump and big lobbying firms. And then last,
the last thing to highlight is another consumer protection piece,
the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has played an enormously
(31:17):
important role in saving millions of Americans' money and protecting
them from corporate scams. This is they have been a
big target by Zuckerberg, by Mark Andresen. And there's a
number of firms under disguise of dbanking, which we could
talk about more firms that are are signing up with
Ballard and are ultimately interested in, in Elon Musk's words,
(31:39):
deleting the CFPB.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Right, No, I mean for sure that these are all
really interesting. The cutouts for tariffs, we saw that a
lot in Trump one point zero and Trump two point zero.
They said they weren't going to have cutouts for tariffs, right.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
L L Yeah, we'll see.
Speaker 6 (31:57):
But you know, there's there's a reason I think that
Tim Cook and Jeff Bezos and all of these people
who are heavily reliant on producing stuff in China are
all of a sudden big bands of Donald Trump, right.
And famously, Apple got huge cut out carveouts in the first.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Yeah, for the iPhone, and that seems really like an
important point. And again this goes into this cleptocracy thing, right,
picking winners and losers. Trump Ism is an embraceive crony capitalism,
and the gas company is super interesting. Donald Trump is
funded though by Elon Musk. Right, Elon Musk made billions
(32:36):
of dollars in climate change subsidies because irony is alive,
and well, how does this not collide? Right, Donald Trump
is in the pocket of the oil company. He's always
has been, right, we had Rex Tillerson and the first
Trump admin did not even try to hide it. So
explain to me the tension there and how you see
(32:58):
that playing at tension between the tension between Elon and Exon.
Speaker 6 (33:03):
Yeah, it's an interesting thing, But I mean, I think
there's some interesting things going on though with Tesla. Obviously,
Tesla benefited enormously, as you were saying, from you know,
carbon tax credits and that that sort of regime. Right,
They've sort of built a huge part of their business
and their revenue on trading like carbon tax credits. But
(33:27):
I also think in some ways Tesla has benefited the
least of all the electric car companies from the inflation
reduction app that Biden passed and this move to promote
electric vehicles. They've lost an enormous amount of market share
over the last couple of years as other companies like
Hyundai and US companies like GM have ramped up their
(33:49):
electric vehicle output and started to produce better cars. And
I do think that Elon and Tesla to some extent
have an intro in undermining the progress that was made
by the RA because they had such a strong foothold
already in this market. The competition is actually ultimately bad
(34:12):
for Tesla.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
Right, Yeah, so Elon has Tesla, he has SpaceX, he
has Twitter. Whatever. That's I think kind of a rounding error.
But I wonder if you can explain to us, you know,
there are a lot of different things in the case
and how Elon is sort of functioning in this Trump government.
But part of it, right, is that he's there for
(34:34):
his companies, right. Part of it is that he's there
for power or part of But if he has all
these companies, and he does have a vested interest, and
we have all of these different players all who have
vested interests, right, So, and you talked about this before.
Tim Cook wants car Vattes for China, and you know,
you have Andreas and Horowitz has a bunch of portfolio companies.
They're just everybody has these different instant different you know,
(34:57):
they're all sort of trying to curry favor with the
ma King in order to get what they want because
Trump is very transactional. So what do you think and
since you sort of know all these companies Elon is
doing in the federal government, because you know, from what
I understand for the people I know who used to
know him well, of which I know one person, my
(35:18):
sense is that he cares the most about his companies.
I mean also his weird political stuff, but his companies.
So my question is, what do you think the sort
of goal there is.
Speaker 6 (35:29):
Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I think all
you have to do to understand this is look at
the agencies that he's going after, and recently came out
right that he the Department of Labor is his next
target with do Oche, and you look at the labor
violations that his companies have had over the years. There's
been workers who die building a Tesla gigafactory at Osha investigated.
(35:52):
You have Tesla, which has been notoriously anti union. Mosque
has talked about how he doesn't believe in unions when
they have fired where workers for unionizing, They've come under
fire from the NLRB. SpaceX has also been under fire
for labor violations, a total lack of regard for environmental regulations,
(36:12):
and you know, really, I think negatively impacted the community
in Texas that they operate in. You don't see him
going after the Defense Department where he gets you know,
billions and billions of dollars in contracts from for SpaceX
and Starlink. You don't see him going after the agencies
that ultimately are very beneficial to his business and those contracts.
(36:35):
But he is intent on tearing down, you know, important
parts of the federal government that defend workers, that encourage unionization,
to make sure workers are and it's it's I think,
clearly ultimately to benefit his company. And you know, I'll
say this too. I don't think it's just Elon Musk.
(36:56):
I think all of this sort of tech billion airs
and major chech corporations that are involved in the Trump
administration are engaged in a similar effort. They want their
piece of the pie, and they want to strip away
the important parts of the federal government that stop sort
(37:18):
of their rule breaking, in fraud and lawlessness, and they
see this as their opportunity. With Trump, we're.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Into Lena Khan world. And I want you and I
to talk about Lena Khan because Lena Khan has made
all the very rich people very mad. This is like,
I feel like a great moment from the Biden administration.
Here is the most important probably person in the admin
in certain ways. Right, She's a trustbuster. She has made
(37:45):
everyone furious with her who's wealthy, and in the end,
the people who would have benefited from what she's doing
didn't even know she was there. So make us understand.
Because you come from world Bernie, I think was the
last time that Democrats were able to connect with populism,
(38:07):
despite the fact that their legislation is almost entirely populist.
So make it make sense why they can't, how they
could and anything else we want to talk on this
topic about.
Speaker 6 (38:19):
Yeah, I think one of the things that populists need
to do, and I think Lena Conda quite well was.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
Root her effort and her.
Speaker 6 (38:28):
Work in the fights and the issues that millions of
working class people are concerned about. You look at her
efforts around housing, efforts to take on big corporate landlords
or this wasn't her who was DOJ and Cantor, but
efforts to take on companies like Real Page incredibly powerful
(38:49):
work that was rooted in essential an issue that millions
and millions of people are concerned about in this country,
housing affordability. And you're totally right that it is. It's
so painful to me that one of I really think
one of the most effective communicators and someone in the
administration who was engaged in some of the most important
(39:10):
fights in this country taking on big tech companies that
have become increasingly powerful. And you heard Joe Biden talk
about in his farewell speech. She didn't get the sort
of attention that it deserved. She wasn't uplifted by the
president on a daily basis. The fights that she was
engaged in were sort of relegated to the background. And
I think that if you're going to build a populist movement,
(39:35):
we can learn a lot from the sorts of fights
in the ways that Lena Khan engaged during the administration.
But it is really important that we talk about that
that it is front and center that the fights with
corporate America on behalf of working families are centered in
(39:56):
our politics and not something that we try to hide
too often. I feel like Democrats are afraid of that tension.
They're afraid to have a fight, and the fights are
what animate and tell people what we care about. They're
so important to helping people understand what side the Democratic
Party is on, who we're fighting for, and what we're
(40:19):
fighting for. And Trump does this every single day and
it's incredibly effective. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
That's my real question is when you're looking at these
you know, there's almost populous legislation, right, I mean that's
what it is. You know, a lot of populous legislation
boost up the economy. Really, you know, sort of writed
a lot of the mistakes from two thousand and eight. Yeah,
but could not or would not transmit any of that
(40:47):
to the American people.
Speaker 6 (40:48):
Yeah. No, we obviously suffered from an inability to communicate
what we were trying to do, and fundamentally, I think
outline a vision for what we want America to look like,
who we care about, the ways in which the system
is broken, and how we were attempting to fix it.
(41:10):
I just don't I'm not sure. I do think that
there was a vision in an ideology that was attached
to a lot of the progress that President Biden made,
but it was not communicated to people. And I think
going forward, as we think about, you know, how we
respond to Trump and how we sort of rebuild the
Democratic Party, we need to do more than just reject
(41:33):
what Trump has to say. We need to actually build
an agenda that engages in the most important fights and
outlines a vision for the American people about what the
core issues are the Democratic Party stands out. I think
if we're just in this resistance mode, if we're just
(41:55):
in it reject everything Trump does if he's bad, sure
we might be able to win in four years, but
are we going to actually be able to rebuild a
working class coalition that can win elections in eight years
in twelve years? I don't think so. I think there
has to be some real sort of agenda setting and
(42:16):
we need to reckon with why the Democratic Party has
lost working class people over the last twenty years.
Speaker 1 (42:25):
Yes, one hundred percent. And also again they voted for
the guy who wanted to do tax cuts for billionaires
because they thought he'd be better for workers. So like,
obviously something is going terribly wrong here, right, I mean.
Speaker 6 (42:45):
Well, I think fundamentally though, Like, what it's really about
is people are pissed off with the status quo. I
really don't think that it's about Donald Trump in particular.
Starting in two thousand and eight, basically people were frustrated
with the status quo and wanted something fundamentally different, and
they elected Democrats and a landslide right twenty twelve of
them was able to hold on, But then you have
(43:07):
another rejection in twenty sixteen, another rejection in twenty twenty,
and then another rejection in twenty twenty four. We just
keep swinging on this pendulum, and the same thing is
playing out all over the world right where incumbents are losing.
The economic system has been broken now at least since
two thousand and eight. People want something different, They want
some sort of change. Neither party is offering that to them.
Speaker 1 (43:29):
I just would add, I think you're right for sure,
But if you look at like government spending around social
safety net, one party did give it to them. I
mean again, wealth and equality, you know, we just not rising.
Inflation is the mind fucked and all mind fucks Like
I get it. I know what it's like to pay
(43:50):
you know, one hundred dollars more a week on groceries
or a month on groceries. I mean, I get it,
but I'm just saying that, like, if you look at
the numbers, perception is real reality.
Speaker 6 (44:00):
Right, Yes, I agree with you. And this gets back
to what we were talking about earlier, right, And like
how do you brain your politics? How do you communicate
your politics? Do you engage in fights or do you
shy away from them? I think that that all contributes
to it. There's no question you're right that the Democratic
Party has done a lot and has tried to fight
for working people.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
But it doesn't matter. If you can't transmit, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 6 (44:24):
Josh.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
I hope you will come back. This as really really
interesting for sure.
Speaker 6 (44:28):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
No moment, Jesse Cannon.
Speaker 3 (44:37):
Molly Jung Fast.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
So we are seeing a lot of officials say fuck
off to Trump, trying to get them out of their seats,
and the latest is the FEC commissioner Ellen Wintrump, who's
considering her options after being ousted by Trump.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
You know what part of this is that Trump doesn't
have the authority to do any of this extracurricular stuff.
He's not a king. He's part of the government and
now is I think a really important point here is
that we are really seeing like their right to not
do that. They're right to not let him go crazy
on stuff. So Ellen Wintrapp, she was put on this
(45:15):
bipartisan commission by George W. Bush. Woke George W. Bush Thursday.
She was fired by a brief letter. At least it
wasn't a tweet. She shared a copy of the letter
on X and she said, there's a legal way to
replace the FEC commissioner. This isn't it. I've been lucky
to serve the American people again. Look, this is this
idea that trump Ism wants to weaponize every part of
(45:39):
the federal government to protect Trump. And this should not
surprise anyone. This is what they do, right, This is
what they told us they were going to do, and
this is what they're doing. And none of us should
be surprised. And everyone is going to have to keep going.
Everyone is going to have to fight against this. There's
absolutely no reason that anyone should let this happen because
(46:03):
it's not right and it's not what they were elected
for and it's not constitutional. That's it for this episode
of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and
Saturday to hear the best minds and politics make sense
of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast, please
(46:25):
send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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