Rick Wilson, Nina Jankowicz & Daniel Nichanian

The Lincoln Project’s own Rick Wilson skewers the Supreme Court’s handling of the Trump immunity case. American Sunlight Project’s Nina Jankowicz tells us how she is fighting disinformation. Bolts Magazine’s Daniel Nichanian examines state-level politics that can have a big impact on our future.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
And Senator Mitch McConnell has joined Donald Trump and Carry
Lake by shying away from a national abortion band.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
We have such a great show for you today.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Nina Jenkowitz stops Fight to tell us about our new organization,
the American Sunlight Project, and how she is fighting disinformation.
Then we'll talk to Boltz Magazines Daniel mcckanyan about state
level politics. They can have a big impact on our future.
But first we have the host of the Enemy's List,

(00:39):
the Lincoln Project's own Rick Wilson.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
Rick Wilson, Mollie John Fast, how are you?

Speaker 4 (00:47):
I am in Washington, d C. The District of Columbia,
living the train.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Not prom beckins it's right, but the only thing worse
than being so talk to me about here we are?

Speaker 4 (01:02):
We are the Supreme Court. What did you think of that?

Speaker 5 (01:06):
Look?

Speaker 3 (01:06):
I know a lot of people are like, oh, they
seem to be ready to restrict Trump's immunity. They were
also seemingly okay with Trump's attorneys sitting there saying, well,
you know, we could sort of assassinate people, and maybe
not everybody, but they were talking about the president having
the right to engage in any kind of criminality inside
the quote ambit of his office. I'm sorry, folks, that's

(01:28):
not how this works. That's not how any of this works.
And I was I think as disappointed as anybody that
supposed conservatives on the court, who are not, by the way,
conservatives anymore. They're radical, and they're far, far, far outside
of the traditional definition of conservatism. Were essentially on the
present case, they're sort of lollygagging and bullshitting along whatever. Right,

(01:54):
you know, we'll get to it when we get to it.
I guess I'm talking about the future and also really
describing an openness, you know, when there's.

Speaker 5 (02:02):
The things that the president must be able to.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
Take bold and effective action, and when they're describing it
that way, all I can think of is, oh God,
these little weasels are going to say, well, martial law
is not bad, you know, I mean not bad per se, right,
who among who among us has not wanted to declare
martial law? The entire thing had a terrible feel to it.

(02:25):
I'm not an attorney, as I have famously noted about
a billion times. But I kept coming back to this
thing that I do know about, and that's people, and
the thing that I do know about, and that's politics.
And I'm telling you the argument that we're making was, well,
unless we give the president's immunity, they'll all transform into criminals.

Speaker 4 (02:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:44):
Where the real worry that I think anybody who knows
anything about human beings is if they don't have any restrictions,
they will turn into criminals. This is what laws are for.
And the idea that you just that you have to
protect the president in such a massively sweeping, expansive way.
I had a lot of trouble yesterday with a lot

(03:04):
of my friends in on the right and the center
right and the left who say things like, oh, don't worry,
Trump will be restrained by the rule of law and
the institutions in Washington. I'm like, where which ones? Just
show me, Show me on the doll where the institutional
protections are, because I don't see it. Show me where
you think that Trump won't do the worst possible things

(03:26):
because I don't see it.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
One of the things that I was so struck by
was that what the Supreme Court is saying so it
sounds like they're probably going to kick it back to
the district court and give Trump the delay he wants.
But what I was so struck by is like, what
you have to realize about this is the institution not
holding right, That's what this is.

Speaker 5 (03:49):
Correct, This is everything falling apart.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
Right, This is the three Trumpet justices going along to
get along in a way that serves they're not.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Yeah, and for all of the idea that Amy Comy
Barrett was the one Republican.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
Yesterday who at least asked questions, sort of kind.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
Of even giving a shit about about the question of
whether or not there.

Speaker 5 (04:14):
Were restrictions and limits.

Speaker 3 (04:16):
If Amy Comy Barrett is your like rock star in
this thing, and John Roberts the one that supposed to
ignore me, I'm sorry, this is a.

Speaker 5 (04:24):
Bad spot to be at it this point. This is
not great.

Speaker 4 (04:27):
I would say it is not great.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
You just have to realize that these are the institutions
not holding and yep, and that know that no one
is going to.

Speaker 3 (04:39):
Say, Nope, we have to vote him out, We have
to vote at his minions in a scope and scale
and degree that, to use a Trumpian metaphor has never
been seen before, and you know, you have to beat
the hell out of him. You have to beat the
hell out of him, You have to destroy them in
political terms.

Speaker 4 (04:58):
Right, Yes, important that you're supply.

Speaker 3 (05:00):
Yeah, these days I have to say politically, I'll get
in trouble. Otherwise we saw the court make a very
political The vibe space of that court was extremely political.
And the nodding and the winking and the sort of
snideness from Alito about well, we know prosecutors are crooked.

Speaker 4 (05:20):
Oh really, can I just say one thing about that?

Speaker 1 (05:24):
If Alito were a liberal and never were two insane
liberal justices on the court, let's just place out for
a minute. Okay, the thought experiment as much as anything
a a duncan experiment. Yes, right, if there were two
insane liberals on the court. You don't think the Republicans
in the Senate would make their lives a misery like

(05:47):
the Democrats you control the Senate. You know what Sheldon
white House could do if Chuck Schumer would let him
and let him, let Sheldon white House.

Speaker 4 (05:58):
I'm hearing this every day.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
If Justice Thomas doesn't want to come, fine, but let
the American people.

Speaker 4 (06:04):
Know that these people are not you know, that they're
not on the level.

Speaker 3 (06:10):
You know, I just wish yesterday that Katanji Brown Jackson
had recused herself, given that her husband was so involved
in planning the one sixth attack and the exactly and
they are, oh wait, I'm sorry. That wasn't Katanji Brown Jackson.
That was that was Clarence Thomas. But the idea that
we have a sense of inevitability about the court letting
Trump go, letting him off because they know very well

(06:32):
if he doesn't get prosecuted now, it's not going to
happen in time for the election. They get it, They're
perfectly aware of it. And if we don't end up
and I think pretty quickly following the Wilson rule from
about a year and a half ago, where I kept
telling people nothing is going to change in the courts,
that's going to save you stuff.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
Thinking that way, you do have to admit that you
are like a little bit impressed with how good then
your a case has turned out.

Speaker 3 (06:58):
Listen, I will tell you flat out, I thought that
case was the weakest, and it turns out they've built
a pretty solid case here. And the reason I know
it's a pretty solid case is that Donald Trump has
kept his goddamn mouth shut.

Speaker 5 (07:14):
About David Tecker.

Speaker 4 (07:16):
Yeahs not trying.

Speaker 3 (07:17):
To go out there and cause the Trumpian Matte mob
to go after David Pecker. He knows there is evidence
being put out there that for most Americans feels new.
They either forgot it or they didn't know it, or
it was two on the margins in twenty sixteen. But
now they're like porn star what they admitted it. I think, Look,
it's still not the full game changer for the entire.

Speaker 4 (07:38):
Election, right, but nothing is but right because they did
not hold.

Speaker 3 (07:44):
No, it doesn't hurt to see Sleepy down there every
day in his diaper, snoozing and grumpy.

Speaker 4 (07:51):
And I would also add what I think is very
interesting about this case is again the pundon industrial complex.
This is the weakest case. This is the case I
would want this case to go first. It's terrible and
the theory of the.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
Case basically was that Michael Cohen was a bad witness.

Speaker 4 (08:11):
Meanwhile, Michael Cohen hasn't even been up there.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
In fact, we have David Pecker who turns out to
be an incredible witness.

Speaker 3 (08:19):
Don't you think, I mean, don't you think he's been
kind of shockingly great for the prosecution.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
I mean, he signed a non prosecution agreement, so they
knew exactly what he was going to say because he
didn't want to go to jail.

Speaker 5 (08:31):
It's not the worst incentive, no, you.

Speaker 4 (08:33):
Know, in this case, I think it's smart.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
And what I think is really interesting is he talks
about I mean, there are you know, he says this
wasn't about Millennia, was about the election. He said that
he went to his general counsel and his general council
said he shouldn't pay off Stormy Daniels because it'll look
like an election interference and it'll be we don't know
what he said to a special council because that's confidentiality,

(08:56):
but clearly it's something that got him not to pay
Stormy Daniels so and likely had election.

Speaker 4 (09:03):
You know that he knew what he was doing was
the least.

Speaker 5 (09:05):
That's right.

Speaker 4 (09:06):
He is making the entire case right there.

Speaker 3 (09:09):
And I look, I do think that Pecker has been
I mean, aside from all the puns that I've been
able to make for the last several days, I do
think that Pecker has been remarkably compelling and in validating
the things that they're going to ask Michael Cohen about
in a few days. Trump's going to say, Oh, Cohen's
a liar. He's an adjudicated liar, just like Trump is

(09:29):
an adjudicated rapist. Sorry, I mentioned that.

Speaker 1 (09:32):
A judge has rolled he's a racist, But yes, a
jury I don't think.

Speaker 3 (09:37):
But long story short, all this testimony from Pecker is
going to validate a lot of the things that Michael Cohen,
who has cooperated extensively, is going to say in the
course of the next few days. And I think I
think people have undercounted what Michael will have to say
that could be seem less credible because of the attack

(09:58):
that Trump folks are going to bring in on the
fact that my Michael went to prison for a line
on Trump's behalf. But David has come across and basically said, Okay,
you know what I did these things for him. I
was doing him a favor. I was helping him because
of the campaign. Michael's going to say, it's because of
the campaign. We're going to we now end up knowing
that you know, Trump also was talking to Hope Picks

(10:20):
and Sarah Hucklefuck and that they were they knew it
was about political motivation. The whole thing is just not
going as for Trump as as smoothly as I think
he might have hoped.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
I want to talk about Sarah Hakabe and Hope Picks
because they did this while working in the White House,
so your tax dollars.

Speaker 3 (10:41):
Yeah, let's not forget they were a White House government
paid staffers.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
I mean just in Saturday, like, the government paid those
people to help Donald Trump cover up his affair with
an adult film star.

Speaker 4 (10:58):
So I thought that was pretty interesting.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
Will die on the hill of the fact that this
guy is a degenerate and that he has no moral
sense whatsoever. But he had enough political sense to understand
that the exposure of payoffs to Stormy Daniels was not
bueno when it came to the political effect he would
have on his campaign, on his prospects of being elected president.

(11:23):
And because of that consciousness of the damage it could do.

Speaker 5 (11:28):
That's where we're at right now.

Speaker 3 (11:29):
That's where the situation, to my mind, is the most interesting,
because he knew what was going to happen if it
got out there. Further, he understood it. He's not Look,
Trump is not a smart man, but he has a
fairal cunning and a craftiness about him, and he picked
it up.

Speaker 5 (11:43):
He read the room, and in.

Speaker 3 (11:45):
Doing so, that's sort of how he's put himself in
this terrible box. Do you pretend that this was nothing?
Do you deny it again? Get and get banged for perjury?
The whole thing's just really ugly for him, and I'm
here for it.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
What do you think would have happened had the dormy
Daniels came forward before the election, Like what if the
weekend of that excess Hollywood tape that had also burst?

Speaker 3 (12:13):
I do think it would have been a thing. It
would have caused a ruckus. Now, I don't know. I
can't say that some of the things Hillary should have
been doing being in Wisconsin, et cetera, et cetera. I
can't say that would have cost him the race completely,
but it would have made it much more problematic. It
would have changed the news cycle at the end there

(12:34):
bit the presumption was that it had already killed him, right,
And that's a presumption that people cannot afford to make again.
Although I will say this that there's a lot of
polling theory starting to come out now, and the way
to move these voters is not as much like oh,
we're going to find other Republicans to say, I what
a bad Republican.

Speaker 5 (12:53):
He is or what anything of that.

Speaker 3 (12:54):
It is increasingly that voters need to be presented with
new information and when they find that the new information
or if it feels new, okay and man, they are
much more likely to go, hold up, what am I
doing here? Wait a second, what am I doing here?
And so Stormy kind of feels new to a lot
of people. She was not somebody who has been in

(13:14):
the news flow every single minute of every single day
since Trump left office. Now that she is, it's not
great for him.

Speaker 1 (13:22):
Yeah, it does seem as if these slatious characters coming
back from twenty fifteen and newness is like seven years ago.

Speaker 3 (13:31):
Like I said, it feels new to most people. Look,
there's a generation of young voters who are now like,
who the fuck is that?

Speaker 5 (13:38):
What are you talking about?

Speaker 4 (13:39):
I mean, do you think there's a generation of young
voters or.

Speaker 3 (13:43):
There's a cohort of younger voters? And you see this
in some of the polling, like the younger voters like, oh,
I guess Trump was pretty good economically, right, And it's
because they weren't really fully politically.

Speaker 5 (13:54):
Conscious at that time.

Speaker 3 (13:55):
But man, I mean, this is a place where you
really have you know, Trump in misery because he's trapped
in a courtroom listening to this shit. He's trapped in
a courtroom every day having to listen to this get
recapitulated and look whatever. I mean, all kidding aside. Whatever
they pay Milania to keep quiet, in the end, it's
not enough because you know, she's got to sit there

(14:18):
and eat this shit sandwich every day. She's got to
sit there and eat this gigantic shit sandwich.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
One of the big anxieties. I think that we're seeing
a lot of Democrats people listen to this podcast and
people who we you know, come into contact with is
like our voters moved, Like can voters connect with some
of the information that's out there. I mean, for example,

(14:47):
like Biden World, they passed this humongous age aid package,
which no one thought they would be able to do,
including me. I was like, there's no way they're getting money.
And they got this money. They got Mike Johnson to
do it. I mean that was shocking to me. I
thought it was over for Ukraine and they really disappointed
in one blandamer Putin.

Speaker 3 (15:07):
I mean Putin had a bad day. There's no way
to spin your way out of that one. You can't
spin your way out of the fact that a guy
you thought was in your pocket turned around and absolutely
wreck your shit, and I'm here for it. I think
that there is a degree to which the Biden administration
and the Biden campaign are going to continue to face

(15:29):
this sort of weird cross pressure. That they can do
the right thing, they can do, they can do the
right strategic things, they can do the right political and
policy things, and yet people who should be with them
are still like, not good enough. Fuck you, not good enough?
Give me more, do better? I want something different.

Speaker 4 (15:45):
Is that a post pandemic syndrome? What do you think
it is?

Speaker 3 (15:48):
I don't know, Mollie. We're gonna probably disagree on this
a little bit. I think there are some progressives who
are exceedingly grumpy about certain things and won't stop being
grumpy even though it's hurting the team.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
Yeah, but that's not a huge group. I mean aocs
out there campaigning with him.

Speaker 3 (16:05):
No, no, I'm not talking about the legislative stuff. I'm talking
about the protesters at universities.

Speaker 4 (16:10):
Again.

Speaker 1 (16:11):
I hate poles, but like they say, two percent of
all young people care about that.

Speaker 5 (16:15):
Yeah, I know, but.

Speaker 3 (16:16):
Guess what one percent of Rupert Murdoch's audience sees those
kids every night.

Speaker 4 (16:20):
Right, But those are not liberals.

Speaker 3 (16:23):
But I'm saying there are people broadly on the left
who are like, yeah, those kids are speaking the truth,
the power and blah blah blah.

Speaker 5 (16:30):
Don't be sentimental about this stuff. People.

Speaker 3 (16:32):
It's not a good look because every night on Fox
Now the audience is being told the radicals are coming
to kill you. Look, it's Antifa twenty twenty four, and
that shit is not inconsiderable with working class Democratic voters.
Do not undercount it. I spend a lot of time
worrying about that.

Speaker 4 (16:50):
Rick Wilson, I hope you'll come back, you know, I will.

Speaker 5 (16:53):
I'm your huncle.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
Berry Spring is here, and I bet you are trying
to look fashionable.

Speaker 4 (17:02):
So why not pick up some.

Speaker 1 (17:03):
Fashionable all new Fast Politics merchandise. We just opened a
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Speaker 2 (17:20):
Nina Jankowitz is the founder of the American Sunlight Project
and a former Department of Homeland Security official.

Speaker 1 (17:29):
Welcome to Fast Politics, Nina.

Speaker 4 (17:32):
Thanks for having me. Mollie.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
I feel like I need you to tell your origin
story for our listen.

Speaker 4 (17:37):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
First, I'm sorry, but I could tell your origin story,
but that doesn't solve anyone's problems. I always feel like
it's better to have people tell them, so to have
the guest explain it.

Speaker 6 (17:48):
I'll try to tell you the short, short versions. Otherwise
we'll be here all day. I have became with disinformation
researcher a little bit by accident. I used to work
in the democracy promotion space for the National Democratic Institute,
which is a non partis an organization that kind of
does democracy promotion abroad.

Speaker 4 (18:05):
And I was a Russia specialist. That's where I cut
my teeth.

Speaker 6 (18:07):
I did work in the former Soviet space and around
twenty thirteen, when the Year of my Don protests happened,
like the first invasion of Ukraine, that's when I started noticing, Hey,
like Russia is doing some scary shit with the Internet
and we all need to.

Speaker 4 (18:21):
Wake up to it.

Speaker 6 (18:22):
And I was told a lot here in Washington like
oh no, like everything's fine, you know that that's happening
over there. In those countries, but we don't need to
worry about it here. Fast forward a couple of years.
We all know what happened with Russian interference in twenty
sixteen and twenty seventeen.

Speaker 4 (18:36):
I actually happened to be in Kiev at the time.

Speaker 6 (18:39):
I was a advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
under a Fulbright grant that year, and so watching all
of that happen from abroad, particularly from Ukraine, which had
been living the realities of Russian disinformation for so long,
really frustrated me. And I wrote a book about How
to Lose the Information War. That was my first book,
and then I did a lot more research on disinform

(19:00):
not just of the Russian variety over the next couple
of years.

Speaker 4 (19:03):
Fast forward to twenty twenty two.

Speaker 6 (19:04):
I get a call from the Biden administration asking me
if I'd like to come serve my country, help advise
the Department of Homeland Security on the disinformation problem and
kind of craft this information policy that made sure it
had respect for civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy.

Speaker 4 (19:23):
And of course I said yes right like I had
always been.

Speaker 6 (19:26):
Working toward public service, and I thought that this was
an urgent issue. That our government needed to solve. One
of the first things I said to my boss as
at DHS when I got there, was like, we need
to announce this, and we need to do it soon,
because I'm a public figure and people are wondering where
I've gone. At the time, it was like right after
the second invasion of Ukraine began, and so I suddenly

(19:48):
disappeared from media as a Ukraine expert, which was suspicious,
and they gobdled for like eight weeks, and then they
finally announced it in a very opaque way, and the
right wing went absolutely nut.

Speaker 4 (20:00):
Actually some on the far left as well.

Speaker 6 (20:02):
They claimed that my job leading the Disinformation Governance Board,
which admittedly is a very bad name that I did
not come up with. They said that I was going
to be like America's chief censor, Tucker Carlson said that
I had the power to send men with guns to
the homes of Americans with whom I disagreed. People were
accusing me of treason. At the time, Molly I was

(20:22):
thirty seven weeks pregnant, and people were sending me and
my family death threats.

Speaker 4 (20:27):
We were docs.

Speaker 6 (20:28):
It was a really, really nasty situation that unfortunately has
become very normal in our politics today, and the administration
did not have my back.

Speaker 4 (20:38):
They let me twist in the wind.

Speaker 6 (20:39):
I think there were other political priorities at the time,
but it became clear to me that they weren't going
to solve this issue, not just like my personal heart
in the issue, but they weren't going to put their
back into like a really muscular response to disinformation. And
just to be clear, the board had nothing to do
with censorship. It was a coordination and policy body. It
didn't have the resources or were frankly the go ahead

(21:02):
from any part of government to do any sort of
censoring or arbitering of truth. And I wouldn't have approved
that anyway. All of my research says that stuff doesn't work.
But that didn't matter to the people who were lying
about me for power and for profit, and.

Speaker 4 (21:13):
So I resigned. Three weeks later, I had my baby.

Speaker 6 (21:16):
He's now almost two, and as I have gone through
the past two years, I realized I was the vanguard
in this mostly conservative operation to really intimidate and harass
disinformation researchers ahead of a twenty twenty four election. And
the idea, of course, is to do this for political
being they have been calling people before Congress, they have

(21:40):
been suing them and frivolous last seas they want them
not to talk exactly, and frankly, they're succeeding like these
are the canaries in the coal mine, and those canaries
are kind of getting snuffed out. Their funding has been
in dangers, their families have been endangered. They're scared. Their
institutions also don't have their backs in some cases similar
to what I've gone through. And here we are in

(22:00):
a situation where we've got AI supercharging disinformation.

Speaker 4 (22:05):
We have foreign actors who are just licking their lips
at the polarization and problems that they see in our
American politics because it gives them so much to work with.

Speaker 6 (22:16):
And we've got people who were happily spreading disinformation for
profit and we haven't dealt with that at all. And
social media platforms that have dropped the ball when it
comes to not only disinformation, but like other online harms
because they're worried about the political.

Speaker 4 (22:29):
Backlash of Trump should get into office.

Speaker 7 (22:31):
So we have a.

Speaker 6 (22:31):
Cocktail of a really potentially explosive situation come November to January,
and I.

Speaker 4 (22:38):
Decided to put on my hand and say we need to.

Speaker 6 (22:41):
Do something about this because the worst has already happened
to me, you know, safe from like physical altercation, which
I hope, of course doesn't happen, but like I've gone
through the shit. I'm tired of people harassing researchers under
the guise of free speech.

Speaker 4 (22:54):
So, yeah, that's the short version of me.

Speaker 1 (22:57):
What do we think happened? I mean, I understand that
you were sort of targeted by the disinformation you were
trying to stop.

Speaker 4 (23:04):
Right, I mean, isn't that the story ultimately?

Speaker 8 (23:07):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (23:08):
And is that has that kept going with other people?

Speaker 7 (23:11):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (23:11):
Absolutely, it's kept going with other people, and still is
happening to me. I mean, even before we announced our
new project, the American Sunlight Project, I still get death
threats regularly.

Speaker 4 (23:21):
I still get harassed regularly.

Speaker 6 (23:23):
It was to the point where, like Fox News was
defaming me so much I decided to sue them because
it was just ridiculous. They were mentioning me eight months
after I resigned from government and I would get away
for AFFMN and.

Speaker 1 (23:34):
Did it work?

Speaker 4 (23:36):
Well, we're waiting. Do you mean their their defamation or
my lawsuit?

Speaker 1 (23:40):
Your lawsuit? Their defamation obviously worked, right.

Speaker 6 (23:43):
Yeah, yeah, their defamation is extremely effective. The lawsuit, we're
waiting to pee, and we're waiting for a judge to
rule on the motion to dismiss, and then we'll see
where where we go from there. But I was the vanguard, right,
and they came after researchers who did critical work around
the election in twenty twenty, we're looking at things like
COVID disinformation, people who are looking at things like child

(24:04):
sexual abuse material.

Speaker 4 (24:06):
We should all be able to get behind that. But no,
they have now.

Speaker 6 (24:09):
Rebranded anybody who does information integrity research as somebody who
is pro censorship, which is just not the definition of censorship.
But it's so good for them, right, nobody wants to
be in fair censorship, and so they're able to kind
of context collapse and make this argument. And it's so
politically beneficial for them because they've effectively silenced the people

(24:30):
who were calling out their bs for many years.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
Yeah, so what happens? This sounds bad for November.

Speaker 6 (24:36):
I'm not particularly optimistic, especially because we've got AI in
the mix. There was just a new report out today
that said that despite open AI's promises about you know,
lobbying and electioneering and you know making sure that nobody
uses their technology to create chatbots that can do that.
Open AI can be used to target Latino voters with

(24:57):
misleading information. We know that population is extreme susceptible to it.
We're more polarized than ever right, and we've got these
foreign actors that are all too happy to prey on
that polarization. And so that's where we hope the American
Sunlight Project can at least bring these issues to the forefront,
if not try to solve them.

Speaker 1 (25:16):
Explain to me what the American Sunlight Project is.

Speaker 6 (25:20):
Yeah, so we are an organization, a bipart is an
organization that is going to be attempting to increase the
cost of lies that undermine our democracy.

Speaker 4 (25:29):
We're going to do that through research.

Speaker 6 (25:31):
We've got old school OPO researchers on our team, and
we've got some open source investigators as well, more from
kind of the disinformation side of the spectrum, and we're
going to be blowing open every link in the causal
chain of disinformation, how it spreads, how it's financed, how
it makes its way from Congress to Elon Musk to

(25:52):
people like Steven Miller at American First Legal, who then
you know, create these lawsuits. Right, So we're going to
first focus on the the campaign against disinformation researchers, and
then we're going to look at all of the other
disinformation that will come between now and November. And there's
going to be a lot. There's already been a ton
since the beginning of the year. We're going to blow.

Speaker 7 (26:11):
All that open.

Speaker 6 (26:12):
We're going to do, you know, advocacy work talking to
the American people. I think a lot of folks would
be really scared to find out that we have modern
day McCarthyism happening right now in America.

Speaker 4 (26:23):
So you have to say.

Speaker 9 (26:24):
More about that.

Speaker 1 (26:25):
What does that mean?

Speaker 4 (26:26):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (26:27):
Yeah, my grandfather was put in jail by McCarthy. So
this is not something I take lightly. So tell me
what that means. Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 6 (26:36):
So, we've got the subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee,
the Subcommittee on Weaponization of Government, led by Jim Horgan,
who has sent out dozens of letters and subpoenad researchers,
including me. I had to go sit there for five
hours and speak to some of those folks about my
eleven weeks in government with the implication that somehow I'm

(26:56):
in kahoots and all these other researchers are in kohoots
with social media plots forms to censor conservatives, and that
couldn't be farther from the truth that's been borne out
by evidence, which again we'll be collecting on our website
so anybody.

Speaker 4 (27:09):
Can look at it.

Speaker 6 (27:09):
But the idea here is, Okay, Congress is after you
if you're in an academic institution and your institution's having
to spend hundreds of thousands, if not upwards of a
million dollars defending you, getting you legal representation, responding to
document requests, like you don't have time to do your
work anymore.

Speaker 4 (27:26):
You don't have time to do that research.

Speaker 1 (27:28):
Right, and they don't have people to protect them.

Speaker 4 (27:32):
One hundred percent.

Speaker 6 (27:33):
And so we want to make that case to the
American people, but also tell people, you know, disinformation is
not just some technical thing. It's not just mean words
or words you disagree with online. It has effects on
people's lives, normal Americans lives, and so we're going to
be telling those stories as well.

Speaker 1 (27:50):
You're basically it sounds like a little bit like media Matters,
but sort of with more of an emphasis on how
the information gets there.

Speaker 4 (27:58):
Is that right?

Speaker 1 (27:59):
Or yeah?

Speaker 6 (28:00):
I would say we're kind of a Media Matters for
the disinformation age, the digital disinformation age, right, I want
to put an emphasis on transparency and accessibility of this research.

Speaker 4 (28:11):
You know, we are a C four. We're keeping a
close hold.

Speaker 6 (28:14):
On our donors because this is a really dangerous environment
right now, as I know personally. But our investigations are
all going to be open source, all going to be transparent.
People can recreate them themselves if they like and follow
kind of the trail, and I think that's really important
in these days of kind of where people are making
these allegations based on again context collapse, no nuance, a

(28:36):
total kind of just illusions that they're involved in our
politics on So that's really important to me.

Speaker 4 (28:42):
Not that Media Matters doesn't do that. They do great work, but.

Speaker 1 (28:45):
No, no, I mean, I'm just thinking of something.

Speaker 4 (28:47):
That's like it.

Speaker 6 (28:48):
Yeah, I think, I mean, and we consider Media Matters
and folks like the Center for Countering Digital Hate and
others in this ecosystem our allies in this fight.

Speaker 4 (28:56):
One hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (28:57):
I'm hoping you could explain what the see chaininges at
X and how different it is. Obviously I'm asking you
a question. You know the answer to but I mean
that we all know the answer too, but I'm wondering
if you could just expand on it.

Speaker 6 (29:11):
Yeah, it's been such a sad thing to see X
formerly Twitter kind of crumble into being this, you know,
fringe hellhole, honestly because it used to be a place
where you could have conversations and get good information and
follow topics that were important to you and also find community.
And I think that's a really important one that's been

(29:31):
blown open since.

Speaker 4 (29:32):
Elon Musk took it over.

Speaker 6 (29:34):
I had never had a great experience on Twitter now
X Like I had always had a lot of abuse
and nasty content coming at me there because I'm a
woman who deigned to open my mouth on the internet,
but it got measurably worse since Elon Musk took over.

Speaker 4 (29:49):
He fired most of the trust and safety staff.

Speaker 6 (29:51):
He fired people who were looking at human rights abuses
around the world and making sure that the platform was
safe for dissidence and opposition figures around world. And he's
incentivized the sort of outrageous behavior that was always again
on the fringes. Now that's the stuff that people get
paid for on the platform. And I've just kind of

(30:12):
returned to Twitter to poke the bear in some ways,
to kind of talk about what we're doing and show
that you know, it's still a problem. And I'm shocked
at how bad the platform is now. And there have
been a lot of studies, including by ccdch who famously
Musk tried to sue and got his wrist slapped, actually
risk slapped, as.

Speaker 4 (30:31):
I think a little too nice for what happened to
him in court.

Speaker 1 (30:34):
He tried to sue them, and he also tried to
sue made matters.

Speaker 6 (30:37):
Right, yeah, exactly, and and he to my knowledge, did
not prevail in either case. And in the CCD I
really got his ass kicked, and rightly so, right like,
these are researchers looking at the harmful effects of this
platform online and he's tried to make it into a
monetized hate braid and that's sad. However, I will say

(30:58):
it's nice to have a little bit more in the
in the social media space, like a lot of other
places to try out these messages, places that are a little.

Speaker 4 (31:06):
Bit more civil.

Speaker 6 (31:08):
But these communities have broken up as a result of
Twitter breaking up, right, So like now it's I would
say it's not too far off from truth Social or
some of the other kind of quote unquote free speech platforms.
Of course, it's only free speech for people that Elon likes.
If you try to be critical of him, you get
blocked or kicked off.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
Can we talk about what everybody else is? Where is
everyone else? Because like they're certainly not on Twitter anymore.
As someone who's stayed on Twitter, I feel like I'm
by myself a lot of the time.

Speaker 4 (31:36):
You feel like a giant echo, like you get something out.

Speaker 7 (31:40):
Yeah, totally.

Speaker 6 (31:41):
I mean I think people some people have gone to threads,
which I think, you know, has potential but isn't really.

Speaker 4 (31:47):
Very hard to use.

Speaker 1 (31:49):
I say this as someone who doesn't have that much
trouble using stuff. I have a lot of trouble using that.

Speaker 4 (31:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (31:55):
And it also doesn't have DMS, which for journalists, for
you know, people we're doing work like the work we're doing.

Speaker 4 (32:01):
I mean, it's a feature that's really missing.

Speaker 6 (32:03):
But I will say it's the more civil of kind
of the alternative platforms. A lot of people are on
Blue Sky. A lot of the very far left leaning
folks are on Blue Sky.

Speaker 4 (32:12):
It's a bit weird on there.

Speaker 6 (32:14):
I've been on there a little bit, but I don't
think they have the user stats that Friends does.

Speaker 4 (32:18):
And then there's a lot of.

Speaker 6 (32:20):
People, especially in kind of the public intellectual side of things,
really trying hard to make Instagram and TikTok work for them,
and it's just a really difficult transition to make. And
I'm struggling with it too, right, like going from techs
based platform that you fire off while you're standing in
your kitchen dealing with your snotty toddler, to needing to
make a fairly well produced video, like I'm not a

(32:41):
video producer, right, and it takes me a while. So
I think we've really not regrouped yet. There's hope that
like little personal communities like what substock offers or other
newsletters offer, can be a nicer, kinder, gentler Internet, But then,
of course we hit the whole Nazi scandalack, so I'm
not sure.

Speaker 4 (33:02):
I think we're still figuring that out.

Speaker 1 (33:04):
Yeah, it's true the far right. Are they somewhere where
we don't know where they are? Or are they still
on Twitter?

Speaker 4 (33:10):
I think a lot of them are still on Twitter.

Speaker 6 (33:12):
Obviously, Musk reinstated a lot of the accounts that had
been banned or had strikes against them earlier on. So
from what I've seen, there's plenty of far right gathering
on Twitter, but there's also always been a kind of underground,
sort of social media layer for fringe groups, not only

(33:34):
in saying this, like you know the Four Chans and
eight Coons of the world.

Speaker 4 (33:38):
There's you know, patriots dot Win.

Speaker 6 (33:40):
There's one particular forum that I tend to appear on
a lot, but is for ops of AR Fifteen's right.

Speaker 4 (33:48):
So like all these little places, and they're they're quite violent.
That's not where you want to be.

Speaker 6 (33:55):
No, No, that one's whenever I get a notification about that,
I'm pretty worried. But but there's also kind of groups
and Telegram channels and WhatsApp groups, And this is something
I've been warning about for a couple of years, even
before Twitter was imploding, and it's that we are driving
people inadvertently into these closed groups and closed areas on

(34:19):
the Internet where it is hard to understand what they're doing,
where it is hard to monitor that stuff. And don't
get me wrong, I believe everybody should have places for
private communication. But because of this, I hate using this term,
but Balkanization of the Internet it's making it a lot
harder for not only researchers like me, but law enforcement
to respond to this stuff. And I think that's part

(34:40):
of the reason, you know, the January sixth response was
not good enough, because we weren't really following to the
extent that we needed to the conversation online. I mean,
researchers were, but the government certainly is not up on
the latest and greatest monitoring technology of this stuff and
certainly doesn't know like the ebbs and flows of where
these folks are congregating. So we see some of them

(35:01):
on Twitter, but I think there's a lot of the
most worrisome rhetoric is on other places on the Internet
where it's a little bit more difficult to follow it.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
Yeah, so interesting. Thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker 4 (35:14):
It was my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Speaker 2 (35:18):
Daniel Nickinian is the editor in chief and founder of
Boltz Magazine.

Speaker 1 (35:25):
Daniel, Welcome to Fast Politics.

Speaker 7 (35:27):
Thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
There's so much interesting stuff going on, and every day
I want to talk to you about what's happening at
the state level. So, Arizona is a swing state with
a bunch of some real lunatic Republicans, still in office.
That's what I know. At the federal level, right, like
people like Paul Gosar, like real wackads. So I can

(35:53):
only imagine. These are the people who put in place
the eighteen sixty abortion law, right, so I can only
imagine what's happening at the more granular state level.

Speaker 8 (36:03):
So continue, Well, it's interesting in Arizona because it's the
state that is extraordinarily important for presidential politics, for federal politics,
for the US said it, for the White House. The
more you go down, it's like a nest doll situation
where the more you go local state, you find more
and more very important races that are stacking up together.
I mean, arguably the most important electoral state this fall

(36:26):
in that sense. And the abortion band that you were
just mentioned in the eighteen sixty four law that was
just revived two weeks ago now by the State's court
has just dramatized that altogether. It's really brought tension around
the judge races, these referendums, the races for the state Assembly,
the state Senate, as well as racist for prosecutor, which

(36:46):
is what I just wrote and wrote about a few
days ago because I was interested in the people who
actually would have authority to enforce the eighteen sixty four
ban and potentially try and bring criminal charges against medical
providers the state.

Speaker 7 (37:00):
What are their thoughts? Are they going to enforce this?

Speaker 8 (37:03):
And even there they're a huge contrast with prosecutors. Just
to give you one example, Molly of the extreme on
the right, there's one county attorney there, which is the
title for prosecutors who have been part of this lawsuit
to try and revive the law. And when I reached
out to their office to ask whether they would prosecute
individuals or doctors or women honor the law, they referred

(37:25):
me for my questions to Alliance Defending Freedom, which is
a religious nonprofit that is involved in all of these
litigation around the country against abortion. They referred me to
ADS four questions about whether they would prosecute me.

Speaker 4 (37:39):
What, yeah, explain that to Mary.

Speaker 8 (37:42):
That's a prosecutor's office in Arizona that is refusing to
take questions from the media about about their policy would
be about whether medical providers in the county should be concerned,
and instead is asking me to ask the same question
to religious organization. It's pretty extreme situation. A lot of
prosecutors are trying todd of the question, which also is
a problem, right Like this, this is a simple question,

(38:04):
what is your approach going to be to this new
law that is now potentially in your hands, And some
prosecutors are saying, nope, we will never use this law
to charge anyone in the state of.

Speaker 1 (38:14):
Arizona, right, which is a crazy place to be with
the law. Like, I think that what's really important about
this is it's good that they're not going to prosecute
people for this because it's insane. But it's more important
to realize, like this is because the Republicans in the
judiciary in Arizona and in the State House in Arizona

(38:37):
are out of their fucking minds.

Speaker 8 (38:39):
Right.

Speaker 1 (38:40):
The decision not to prosecute is because they have to
do it because this law is so insane. Now, supposedly
they did just pass or repeal, right that they're going
to go to the fifteen weeks.

Speaker 8 (38:52):
The state House has passed it at this moment. The
State Senate hasn't yet, and so we'll see what happens.
You're right, Even if that it can foreband is repealed,
other restrictions would still be in placed, which also have
criminal penalties in them, and so the same sort of
question who's going to enforce how? I mean, there's just
so many pieces of that puzzle. So the extent to

(39:15):
which this has just put all of those decisions at
the hand of these very, very county based officials is
very extreme.

Speaker 5 (39:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
Yeah, what does the election look like there? Who's up
and how and where and discuss?

Speaker 8 (39:28):
Yeah, pretty much everyone is up in Arizona, just I
said with the prosecutors. What I was finding in my
reporting is that the biggest Arizona county Maricopa County, which
is more than four million people. It's where Phoenix's has
a prosecutor race with a Democrat who says she will
never file charges on abortion cases and a Republican named

(39:48):
Rachel Mitchell, who actually some of you may remember seeing
on your TV because in twenty eighteen during the Brett
Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, she was the person who replicans have
to interrogate Kristen Ford. She was at the time, not
not yet the county attorney she is now she's running
for reelection and she's not answering questions on what she

(40:09):
would do under the law. But then you know, it
goes all the way, there's all the races for state
Senate in the state House are up, and if there
is going to ever be repeal of all of these
abortion restrictions, it might have to go to the state
and House and Senate. There also might be a referendum
ballot that is still not not final, but organizers are

(40:31):
trying to put a referendum on a ballot to codify
abortion rates. Now, we have seen referendums like that succeed
right we know Ohio last year, in many other states,
so that would obviously be the defining election.

Speaker 7 (40:42):
I think in November in a Marico about.

Speaker 1 (40:45):
When do we know if the abortion referendum will make
it on the ballot.

Speaker 7 (40:49):
We will know that in coming months.

Speaker 8 (40:50):
The organizers have already succeeded at collecting the required number
of signatures, but my understanding is that they want to
continue collecting them just to make sure they're Hey, there's
a lot of surprises, but Mali. What's also super important
is that there's always lawsuits around amendments initiatives in Arizona,
and they often go to the state Supreme Court, and
the state Supreme Court has struck down referendums in the past.

Speaker 7 (41:14):
As as not relevant.

Speaker 8 (41:16):
And the State Supreme Court obviously is the same state
Supreme Court that just revived the eighteen sixty four man.
And what's super important, two of the judges on the
state Supreme Court are also on the ballot in November.
They both actually voted to revive the eighteen sixty four man,
and they will both be in the ballot in November.

Speaker 9 (41:35):
Now.

Speaker 8 (41:36):
A final note, which is maybe the single craziest part,
Republicans are also trying to pass a measure right now
that would end elections for judges in Arizona and would
apply to this year. So they're also trying to pass
that right now.

Speaker 1 (41:52):
So they want to be kings, right, I mean, that's
the thinking here.

Speaker 8 (41:56):
That measure would also be put on the ballot if
Republicans succeed, and it will be such such an intense
election with not just abortion but also the re election
of people who revived the abortion man and also this
measure to end elections.

Speaker 7 (42:09):
It's really a state to watch throughout here.

Speaker 1 (42:11):
I mean, it's more than a state to watch. I mean,
it's an example of the Republicans' anti democratic leanings.

Speaker 8 (42:17):
Right to that point, there's a lot of other measures
Republicans have already put on the ballot to limit voting
rights in the state of Arizona and to make it
harder for people to put bad initiatives and qualify them.

Speaker 7 (42:28):
That is already on the ballot. So there's already already these.

Speaker 8 (42:31):
Measures to restrict elections, restrict voting rights that are already
being pushed through in Arizona right now, and it's all
coming to a head. We have seen it in other states,
like in North Carolina, in Wisconsin, how hard it can
be for measures like that to be recovered from. It
can take a very long time for the conditions to

(42:52):
be right for some of that stuff to be rolled back.

Speaker 1 (42:54):
So voters really need to focus, right.

Speaker 8 (42:58):
I mean, there's going to be a lot on their ballots.
I mean I just named four or five referendums that
are that are going to be on their ballot, including
potentially abortioning sot in voting rights. There's going to be
so many local offices, some of which you know, the
stakes are horrid, right Like when you see a prosecutor
race as one of the twenty elections to vote for,
or a judge race, you might not necessarily know what

(43:19):
who these people are there isn't even a party that
is going to be on the ballot. On the judge elections,
you won't necessarily know that these are the people who
voted to revue abortion bands. So there's just a lot
of research to be done on any election by voters
to get to the stakes.

Speaker 1 (43:35):
Talk to me about what other states you're watching and
one other stuff is happening besides Arizona, which now has
given me an anxiety attack.

Speaker 8 (43:43):
Maybe let's talk about state courts for a moment, because
obviously Arizona is responsible, the court is responsible for the ban,
and then it's itself on the ballot. But that is
also true in many states. You know, if at the
federal level the Uspreme Court is not up for election,
but at the state level in most states it is
that we're seeing the majority of states have elections this
year where their court. Often these are the most tricky

(44:07):
elections to figure out because a judges record is not
heavily reported, it's hard to piece together. So at both side,
I did a guide to every state's court races. There's
very important stakes in so many, so I will start
with naming Ohio and Michigan as the two states where
a partisan majority could flip, and that has very high

(44:29):
implications if it does. For issues like abortion, issues like
voting rights, it matters so much whether the majority on
the court is republic on democratics. So in Ohio, Democrats
have a shot at flipping the court, and in Michigan,
Republicans are hoping to flip the court. Even beyond that,
if you're in North Carolina, if you're in Mississippi, there's

(44:49):
all these interesting judge elections that could shape the balance
of power.

Speaker 7 (44:53):
And in fact, I'll end on Florida to.

Speaker 8 (44:56):
Say that, just as in Arizona, there are two to
Supreme Court justices in Arizona who voted to ban abortion
who are now on the ballot, the same is true
in Florida. There are true justices who in March voted
to uphold the abortion band who are now going to
be also up for retention election in November. So you know,
the stakes are actually quite similar. Abortion voting rets are

(45:19):
coming up everywhere, and they're going to be under the
radar of their presidential election, but they might also shape
the presidential election because these are the people who will
be called on to issue decisions in November and December.
If Trump tries to contest an election, for instance, tell
me what else to take what I was saying about

(45:41):
Arizona elsewhere. There's going to be abortion referendums in a
lot of places. Again, the most important probably is going
to be Florida because of the conditions there and the
abortion ban that is going into place. There's also a
referendum in November to lift the abortion ban. Now, now,
the issue in Florida for abortion rights proponents almost always
win at the ballot box, right, This is there's not

(46:03):
a controversial.

Speaker 4 (46:04):
Issue sixty percent.

Speaker 8 (46:05):
Is that there's a threshold of sixty percent, and that
is not easy. That is not easy to meet, especially
if there's any organized opposition. I mean, the fact that
it's even possible, the fact that it's still a realistic
possibility to abortion rights clear sixty percent in Florida just
just gets just really captures the basic point that this
is not a controversial position. These bands are extremely popular, right,

(46:30):
and there's still a shot for bortion rights to get
sixty percent for sure. There's also a measure in Florida
to legalize weed in November, which is also an issue
that has passed fairly easily around the country.

Speaker 1 (46:44):
There are these ballot initiatives, there are these judgeship races.
What's happening in this sort of in the Ross belt
in the Michigan Wisconsin area.

Speaker 4 (46:55):
Is there anything like that? Can you talk to us?

Speaker 8 (46:57):
The stakes really, I think in the rost Beelt in
the Midwest, but also around the country when it comes
to state politics is who is going to control Obviously
the state governments, so you know, the state Senates and
state houses in almost every state are on the ballot
every two years, so they will be again on the
ballot in November. So, for instance, let's take the state
of Michigan that Democrats just won full control of Michigan

(47:19):
for the first time since the eighties in twenty twenty
two in the midterms, we know, which was already a huge,
huge win for Democrats because it wasn't supposed to be
a good year for them with the Democratic White House,
and they gained full control of Michigan.

Speaker 7 (47:32):
And they've done actually a lot with that power.

Speaker 8 (47:35):
They've passed on an issue that I cover closely, They've
passed a lot of voting rights bill to strengthen voting
rights in Michigan, a lot of stuff that hadn't been
able to pass for so long, and now the majorities
that Democrats gained in twenty twenty two are are going
to be up in twenty twenty four. Are Democrats going
to be able to keep control of the state government
in Michigan? You know, cool questions like that are primordial

(47:57):
in Wisconsin. Oh, Wisconsin is so important because it's going
to be the first election in so long for state
Senate and State House that are not going to be
under their gerrymanders because the state Supreme Court to connect
all the dots what we're talking about. When Liberals gained
the States Court in Wisconsin last year, they promptly struck

(48:18):
down the gerrymandered maps that are locked in the GOP
into power in Wisconsin for a long time. And this
is going to be the first election in Wisconsin that
is going to follow that that is going to have
fairer maps. So are Democrats going to be able potentially
to take back the State Senate ord the State House?
At the very least, they should be able to make

(48:40):
large gains in both chambers, which is going to also
change the state a lot. That's you know, we're seeing
that kind of dynamic everywhere. A last example in North Carolina.
It's sort of an inverse situation. It's such an important state,
it's a large state. So there's two things to watch there.
I think one is the Republican nominee for God you know,

(49:01):
is as fortunately.

Speaker 7 (49:02):
Right as you get at this typele of politics.

Speaker 8 (49:04):
He had made comments about whether women should have the
right to vote.

Speaker 1 (49:09):
He is the lieutenant governor, right, he.

Speaker 8 (49:12):
Is right now, the lieutenant governor, correct, And he's running
against the ag Josh Stein, who's a Democrat. So that's
one right, that's who's going to occupy the governor's mentioned.

Speaker 7 (49:20):
The second is the State House and State Senate. Why
because the sitt Supme Court actually flipped the GOP last
year and blessed GOP jerry manders, and Republicans have passed
new maps as well in North Carolina. For for Congress,
Republicans are hoping to keep super majorities that they have
in North Carolina. Again, huge huge impact on all sorts

(49:43):
of issues, in footing abortion because Republicans just passed major
restrictions on abortion in North Carolina over the veto of
the current governor. It's so important to keep an eye
on governor's races and State House state Senate races all
over the country with all all of these states to watch, so.

Speaker 1 (50:01):
Really interesting staff, So the judgeships, the state houses, the
state Senate. Is there any other state where we should
be thinking about that's important? Besides, all the states are important,
but where there's like small races that nobody is paying
attention to, what I.

Speaker 8 (50:17):
Will throw on the radar of people is you know,
I think earlier you said that I gave you an
anxiety attack, So I'm gonna I'm going to lean back
in that direction.

Speaker 1 (50:26):
No, that's okay, it's me.

Speaker 7 (50:28):
It's nice law enforcement offices, Molly.

Speaker 8 (50:31):
We don't necessarily think of them as like the center
of all of these important left right struggles. But the
Trump camp and the far right in general has found
a lot of support among sheriff's offices around the country.
There's a lot of our Right Connections conferences even that
these officials attend, and they also are on the ballots.

(50:53):
So in states like Arizona, again, in states like Kansas
and states like Wisconsin, you know, we are watching there
these elections at the county level for sheriff and whether
some people who are affiliated with these far right groups
are going to win reelection this year. You know, there's
been more attention in recent years, I think on the

(51:14):
left among Democrats around these offices, around sheriffs, and we
have seen some very high profile people on the far
right loose. But we're also seen a lot more attention
I think on the right to connect the dots between
these sheriffs and invite them to conferences and pluck up
talk to them about investigating elections and investigating abortion.

Speaker 7 (51:34):
So we're also seeing a lot of that.

Speaker 4 (51:36):
Pretty scary.

Speaker 1 (51:37):
Thank you so much for joining.

Speaker 7 (51:39):
Us, Thank you so much for having me. It's always fun.

Speaker 1 (51:44):
No more.

Speaker 4 (51:46):
Jesse can drag fast.

Speaker 9 (51:48):
You know, Republicans have a long history of some dubious
things with dogs coming up into presidential races, but this
one is pretty disgusting this time. I think it tops
the wall.

Speaker 10 (52:00):
Christy Nome makes Mitt Romney look like James Harriet. Oh boy,
she wrote a memoir. She probably didn't actually write it.
Someone wrote a memoir for her which included a story
of her killing both a dog and a goat. She
included these stories because she's a moron, and because she

(52:22):
forgot that the American there's one thing the American people love,
it's dogs.

Speaker 9 (52:27):
And also goats, and then would she decided to make
her statement on it. She admitted to killing three horses.

Speaker 1 (52:33):
Oh yeah, she is our moment of fuck Ray. That's
it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday,
and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes
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And again, thanks for listening.