February 17, 2025 • 48 mins
The Lincoln Project's Rick Wilson skewers Trump’s latest dictator-like language. Former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau head Rohit Chopra details the accomplishments of the organization and why Trump dismantled it.
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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 Marco Rubio says Europe and Ukraine
will be a part of the Russian peace talks, though
that actually is maybe not true. We have such a
great show for you today. The Lincoln Project's own Rick
(00:23):
Wilson joins us to discuss Trump's latest dictator language. Then
we'll talk to former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau head row
heat Chobra about the accomplishments of the organization and why
Trump ended it. But first the news.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
So Malli RFK Junior got right to work dismantling the CDC,
just as we feared he would. And I don't like this.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
You'll be shocked to know that RFK Junior is doing
all the anti science stuff he has long advertised himself
to be. By the way, I just want to pause
for a minute here and say, like, we're basically in
between pandemics. We have bird flu, we got birds dying,
we got cows, a person got bird flu, they had
(01:16):
pink eye. There are all sorts of reasons not to
gut public health organizations, and yet here we are the
Trump administration fired nearly half of the members of the
vaulted public health program that works on the frontlines of
disease outbreaks. You don't need it only a day after
anti vax or conspiracy theorist and might add lover of
(01:40):
many women who are not his wife.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
You could say it because it's true of a lot
of people in this administration.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yes, yes, yes, and members of this intelligence service, which
deals with etymology. Thirteen hundred layoffs there at the Center
for Disease Control and Prevention. We don't have diseases, so
that should be fine. Look, he is stripping the Health
and Human Services staff. He's doing this. And look again,
(02:07):
Remember there are two things to remember here. One is
this is about this larger ethos of Project twenty twenty five. Right,
dismantle the federal government, make it small, make it inefficient,
make it not work so that the people don't believe
in it. Right, that's part of it. And then part
of it is you put someone who really is against
(02:27):
almost all of the important and meaningful parts of public
health in charge of the public health agency. So like
the fact that this is happening, no one should be surprised. Right,
this is exactly how we thought it would go. Some
of the people that he laid off, experts from this
EIS have been dispatched for decades to investigate disease outbreaks
(02:48):
in the United States and abroad. Disease outbreaks. Well, it's
good because we don't have diseases anymore, so that should
be fine. And you know these are high paying jobs, right,
millions of millionaires. Now, I mean, this is fucking ic right.
These are the people who investigated anthrax, investigated.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Abula, which we just got two cases of in New York.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Right, this is absolutely insane. Stat News reports the entire
incoming class, sixty to eighty people were told their positions
have been canceled. This is so fucking stupid. This is
cutting a tiny bit of money to cost a lot
more money soon. And I want to add that we
should not be surprised that these people are doing stupid
(03:29):
destructive things. Stupid destructive things are what they said they
would do, and now they are doing it. So welcome, welcome, welcome.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
So the Republicans have unveiled their budget, and I'm going
to shock you here, Molly. The economists say it'll disproportionately
benefit the one percent.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Never what that's crazy talk. So House GOP's budget proposal,
which ames four point five trillion dollar tax cut but
only for a very very much people with roughly two
trillion and spending cuts, but likely that those spending cuts
will only affect the very poor and also the people
who need healthcare and also people who are affected by diseases.
(04:09):
This was always trickle down economics. None of us should
be surprised that these people are trying to practice the
sort of worst of Reaganism and the worst of Bannonism.
So here we are. They want to cut two trillion
in spending, cut taxes four point five trillion, and the
(04:29):
good news is and also in top line numbers, Republicans
are hoping to pay for their gigantic tax cut for
very wealthy people by reducing spending between one point five
and two trillion. By the way, Medicaid in case you're wondering, Medicaid,
which is the healthcare for poor people that is in
their crosshairs because it always has been. House Republican leadership
(04:51):
has specifically asked the Energy and Commerce Committee to find
eight hundred and eighty billion dollars in cuts over the
next ten years. This is all I want to pause
again to pay four tax cuts for very wealthy people.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
And funny enough, though US in the resistance have an
ally in one Steve Bannon, who warns Trump and Musk
that they shouldn't cut Medicaid because there's loads of mega
that is on Medicaid.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Yes, you will be shocked to know. Look, Steve Bannon,
you may not agree with him, but he is very smart.
I mean I don't agree with him, and nor should
you agree with him. And we most people don't agree
with him, but don't use a meat axe. Steve Bannon
warns Trump and Musk that loads of megas are on Medicare. Again.
You know, one of the things that we've seen with
(05:38):
Steve Bannon is that he actually really is smart and
pays attention to what's going on. I do not agree
with him. I've said this before, but he said he
warned that many of Trump's mega supporters rely heavily on Medicaid,
a subsidy for low income Americans, and not to take
a meat axe to the program more than six hundred
(05:58):
billion dollars when to Medicaid last year. Bannon nevertheless wants
to cut programs to help whack away at the one
point eight trillion dollars in debt. I mean, yes, the
whole goal here is to cut spending, is to cut
the things that you have gotten from the government, right
to cut away at that. So we shouldn't be surprised.
But Bannon is smart, and Bannon wants to keep winning elections,
(06:21):
and he knows if you do this to the people
who voted for you, then they won't vote for you again.
I mean, that's just math. Right. One of the things
that Trump was able to do in his first term
was he was able to have set all this crazy stuff,
but a lot of it didn't happen because Democrats were
able to prevent him from doing it, so people didn't
(06:42):
believe he would do it. This time, there are no
checks and balances, and there's a real opportunity here for
Donald Trump just to do the craziest stuff. And that's
where we are.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Fun times. Speaking of doing crazy stuff, Borders Are, Tom
Homan has suggested that the DOJ should prosecut AOC.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
So this is one of these dumb things. It's dumb
because it's just bullshit. Right. So Tom Holman, who was
the Borders Are, he actually worked under Obama and had
some kind of weird meltdown and now has become completely
a zealot as zealot when.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
He's not embarrassing Eric Adams on air.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah, that amazing interview on Fox and Friends. But anyway,
so that guy said that AOC could have broken the
law by holding a webinar informing immigrants of the rights
during encounters with ice. Now there's no law against that.
It's covered under this amendment. That Republicans are so concerned
about the First Amendment, the freedom of speech. I mean,
(07:42):
they don't love it as much as the Second Amendment,
but it still gets a lot of play. It's a
stupid thing because it can't happen, and it's not true.
This is this Republican bravado, this idea that if you
say something we don't like, we think you should go
to jail, or we think you should be prosecuted. And
Dana Bash asked Tom Holman, do you think that she
(08:03):
should be prosecuted about AOC, and he suggests he said,
I am suggesting that I would ask the Department of Justice,
where's the line on implementation. I think that that's a
broad statute. I mean, look, it's so dumb. I mean,
it's so dumb, and it is meant to be a distraction.
But remember so much of the Sadman is about doing
(08:25):
things to get attention. Maybe he wants to get the
big guy to see it. Maybe he thinks that Trump
will love him more if he picks on AOSA. Shouldn't
be surprised about this. Rick Wilson is the founder of
the Lincoln Project and the host of the Enemy's List
Welcome Back, Too Fast Politics, Rick Wilson.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Hello, comrade, this was the weekend when, even though what
Trump is doing has been bad, I feel like this
was the.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Weekend where we were like, all my a month into
this experiment, and this was a weekend where I was like,
oh wait, what not me?
Speaker 4 (09:08):
I mean, look, I have expected this, this increasing tempo
and the increasing outrageousness of it, and the increasing degree
to which the Democrats have still yet to grapple with
how to deal with it.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Right, First, we need to talk about the Trump tweet
that is Napoleonic. We need to talk about the providence
of it. It's not actually Napoleon. It's a movie about Napoleon.
Speaker 5 (09:35):
Right, correct.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
It's from the nineteen seventy film Waterloo by Robsteiger.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Say more. If you dare.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
This is the classic problem with Trump and his people.
They find something superficial, like that famous quote from Abraham
Lincoln about you can't trust anything on the Internet, and
so they'll run with shit like that. They will not understand,
and they still refuse to understand that the presidency of
the United States, even with a crapulous fuck wit like
(10:08):
Donald Trump in the office, that words matter, that assertions
like that matter. And let's be very clear, Napoleon Bonaparte
was a dictator. I've written I am unfortunately in one
of one of my mani historical rabbit holes. I've studied
a lot about the Napoleonic Wars, and I've written a
lot about Napoleon. I've written a lot about the French Revolution,
(10:29):
partly because Trump idolizes a person like Napoleon, because he
believes he got away with things because he took power
and no one could resist him taking power. This is
what Trump idolizes most. This is why we're now on
the wrong side of history. This is why our allies
now are putin g mbs and Kim Jong un because
(10:51):
he loves that quote. But let me tell you something.
I read it, and I knew it's provenance, and I
knew it was one of those famous sort of faux
historical whatevers. What Donald Trump was doing there wasn't just
asserting his own power. He was also sending a very
very very loud dog whistle through a billion assholes. That
was the moral equivalent of saying, we're going to march
(11:13):
down to the Capitol because if you don't, you're going
to lose your country.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Right, And Nate got very excited by it. But I
want to point out, just for two seconds, just back
to this quote. So it's a line from a screenplay
from a nineteen seventies movie which David from SAZ was
funded by the Russian government and then Waterlieu with Rod Steiger,
Christopher Blummer and sixteen thousand Red Army extras. But I mean, look,
(11:37):
the message here is the same message we're hearing from JD. Ben's,
is the same message we always hear from Trump, right,
which is I am an autocrat and I the laws
don't apply to me, which is, you know, none of
this should be surprising, but all of it should be galvanizing.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
It should be I desperately need the folks out there
to not normalize this in your head. I desperately need
people out there to really think this through what it means.
This is intentionality on his part. This is clarity on
what he will do and will try to get away with.
Napoleon inherited from the French Revolution an internal security mechanism
(12:12):
that would persecute, prosecute, or kill opponents.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Right, But there's no way that Trump knows.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
He knows that he defied convention, he defied law, he
defied order, he defied the constitutional for what it was
framework of how France was organized in or Trump knows
those things at an ansert visceral level. But Molly, it's
also an invitation to these assholes out there. Oh, if
you attack Trump's opponents, now you're doing it for the country,
(12:41):
so you're not breaking the law.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
There's a lot of wink wing, no, no, let's go,
And that's always been true for Trump and iatarily worrying. Now.
The problem on the other side is that Democrats are
having real trouble breaking through. Some of them are out there,
some of them are trying, but it's not connecting for
whatever reason. So let's talk about what they could do
to break through. Let's not even trash then, let's just
get going on like solutions.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
Okay, here's a solution. Build an apatrol rapid response team
of actual rapid responders. It's not members of Congress. Okay,
more about that right now. The average age of the
people on the Democratic rapid response team, a fucking kid,
you not, is seventy seven years old. This is insane.
You need a bunch of pipe swinging young people to
get out there and be on the rapid response front
(13:25):
every day, grinding out these messages, giving them to members
and saying, hey, in your district, Congressman Smith, here's how
many people are getting fucked by this tariff deal. Here's
how many people are getting hurt by firing some government jobs.
Here's how many veterans don't get suicide prevention care. Now
they should be driving information into the hands of every
(13:46):
member of Congress, and Hakeem Jeffries should be there with
a baseball bat going to every member saying, have you
communicated to your district every single one of these facts.
Are you pushing this out to your local media, to
local radio, to local newspapers, to local influencers. Are you
blasting your email list every day? Not just asking for
fundraising but telling people in your district, in your state,
(14:09):
telling them, get on the phone to your Republican neighbor,
get on the phone and spread this message. Here's how
you're being hurt. Here's how Trump is fucking you. Here's
how Trump is burning your community to the goddamn ground.
That is a message out there. The rapid response faces
need to be the members of Congress, and they need
to be aggressive about it. The team needs to be
(14:30):
a bunch of pipe swinging, vicious, bloodthirsty motherfuckers who are
out there try to have the maximum pain on Republicans
in their districts and their states. They should be laying
in as much pain as they can. If Congressman Smith,
a Democrat, is next door to Congressman Jones, a Republican,
in their districts, he should be in that guy's fucking
(14:50):
district saying you're getting screwed by this guy. You're getting
screwed by this guy. Trump is hurting you. He is
hurting you.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
But there's a ton to sort of work off of.
For example, R. FK. Junior, you may have heard of him.
Some of the people Trump has put in this cabinet.
I don't even want to say they're crazy, because crazy
is probably the wrong word for whatever it is.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Evil Molly, evils, the what are you're looking for?
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Yeah? But RFK Junior, he has decided that he's going
to target one of America's greatest problems, which is antidepressant Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
because depressed people are obviously much better for the country.
And I mean, this is the problem antidepressants, right. RFK
(15:37):
Junior is like an ad for Democrats right every single day.
And the fact that Donald Trump put him in there,
I guess because RFK got a lot of voters for
Trump is insane. And I think there's a real question
about why we are not talking about RFK Junior every
minute of every day.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
We ought to be talking about RFK Junior every minute
of every day. We ought to be targeting suburban mothers. Hey, Democrats,
here's a free one for you. Get an ad campaign
running right now into Republican districts for suburban mommies, and
you tell them over and over again, RFK wants your
daughter to get cervical cancer because he wants to ban
Gardisil because he's in a lawsuit. One of his law
(16:17):
firms is suing the manufacture of Gardazil, because that's what
they do, that's their business model.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Is to sue.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
But I think you should be telling Republican women out
there in the country, they should be advertising because they're
still sitting and they and future four it is still
sitting on a giant mountain of money. They should be
advertising to these people saying, say goodbye to your daughter.
She may not died today, but there's a chance she'll
die of cervical cancer. Preventable cancer, cancer that has a
(16:45):
safe and effective medicine that treats it, but no longer
because Robert F. Kennedy, Donald Trump's Health and Human Services secretary,
is taking it away. Yes, I mean, it's not like
I do this in my sleep or anything, but but
I can't understand why they can't recognize you can't just
go out there and say and I saw this the
other day. It was like, what did Democrats do about
on this day? And one of the two of the
(17:07):
bullets were just like, we offered to continue to bring
up a resolution to reintroduce the Veterans Nice Puppies and
Kittens Act or whatever the fuck it was. It's just like,
come on.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
No, I know, but they just need to be focused.
And I think part of the problem is a lot
of these people are very elderly, so they remember a
time when there was a rich and robust mainstream media
that would highlight abuses. That mainstream media is gone, right,
that does not have the world works anymore. The media
is of the New York Times and that is it.
(17:39):
And so there is no one who is going to
draw attention to these abuses if they don't do it.
So if they ever want to win elections again, and
it's not even just about winning elections, you have constituents
in this country who are very angry as well, they
should be right people in the federal government. I mean
this weekend, Elon Musk, the richest man in the world,
(18:00):
he fired the people who watch the nukes for ten hours. Okay,
you need those people, you need those people, thank you.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
So in an area in which all the members of
our family have had some encounters with the National Nuclear
Surity Administration, I can tell you these people do something
really important. They are folks who provide security and oversight
for nuclear weapons.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Preventing a nuclear holocaust. Like you just can't get people
off the street to do that.
Speaker 4 (18:30):
And the purpose of nuclear weapons is to not use them,
ironically enough, but you do have to monitor them and
make them safe and keep them carefully locked away from
idiots and make sure that they're all accounted for at
all times.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
And yet, but the thing that gets me the most
sort of agitated about all of this, if you can
believe it, is like this is to pay for tax
cuts for very much people. This is not because there's
some huge financial crisis. This is not because there is
some budget shortfall that none of us saw coming. This
(19:06):
is because Donald Trump does not want the tax cuts
to expire. I mean, you know, and I think there's
like a real lack of understanding there, right, Like these
are tax cuts that should expire that you know, their
corporate tax cuts. No one wants a corporate fucking tax cut.
Nobody wants that that's not for anyone but very rich
people and tax cuts for billionaires. Let these fucking tax
(19:27):
cuts expire. It is insane. I would also add that
I think that this rabbit hole that we're in, like
should be messaged as this is the richest man in
the entire world. He is interested in keeping his taxes low.
He is cutting cancer research period paragraph.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
Yeah, and he gets upset when you mentioned that he's
cutting cancer research, which, by the way, guys, considering what
a sociopathic weirdo he is, when even Elon Musk gets
that imaging him with taking away kids cancer treatment is bad,
you know, it's really bad.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
But it's also you know, it's like the right thing
to be saying, right, because he has some sense of
what is going to hurt him, and that is something
that's gonna hurt him. But I want to like just
pull back for a minute and pause and think about
for a second sort of the unintended consequences we are
hurtling towards here. There was a headline in the New
(20:24):
York Post. Again, I do not, you know, Rupert Murdock
owned New York Post, that there was an abola scare.
I have a number of reasons not to believe this.
Number one, it's the New York Post, number two, whatever.
But the point is, like, there is a real pandemic.
There's there's bird flu already, it's in the milk of
the cows. So like, could be nukes, could be the economy,
it could be bird flu, could be weather. I mean,
(20:46):
there are so many things that could be terrorism. I mean,
there's so many possible terrible things that could happen when
you dismantle the federal government. And there's no reason to
do this except for tax cuts for very rich people
and ideological beliefs rich people. I mean, there is, as
I see it, no other reason.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
The reason for the tax cuts is exclusively so that Elon,
Peter Thiel, David Zas and a cluster of hedge fund
bros and crypto bros can get their income tax burden
down to essentially somewhere around zero. There is nothing built
into this tax cut. If you make under three hundred
and sixty some thousand dollars a year, you are going
(21:26):
to pay more in taxes. If your kids get college loans,
you're going to be taxed on those fucking college loans
and scholarships. I mean, none of this is going to
help anybody that is not in the eight zero's class
of Americans. It also puts the lie to all there, Oh,
we've got to go through the government and cut every
job out because we're in such deep debt. Okay, right now,
(21:49):
if you trimmed out every bit of what professionals think
about at the fraud and waste level, you trim out
a few billion dollars here in there. Okay, you trim
out three to five percent of the budget, call it waste.
They're asking for ten trillion dollars, four trillion dollars to
keep up the Trump's spending plans, and then that additional
(22:11):
load is going to go to pay for a tax
cut for about two hundred and fifty people in this country.
I know a lot of people they don't like thinking
about the sort of Luigi problem. But we're going to
enter into guillotine and tumbril territory if they pass this
tax cut, because ordinary people are going they're going to
end up in a situation where they completely are financially fucked.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, and they're already. I mean. Look,
Trump was elected to make things less expensive, right, that
was what he said. I'm going to make eggs, so
I was sold. Right, if you can fucking find eggs,
there is expensive. I spent sixty dollars on three things
of eggs. Okay, thirty six eggs. Sixty dollars. Now that
(22:54):
seems like a lot to me.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
I was told that prices were going to come down
immediately because it was going to be so beautiful.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Right, But so price is not going down, but you're
getting less stuff from the government. Make it make sense.
But I want to pause for a minute because I
want We're going to spend two minutes talking about fifty
million dollars to Gaza for condoms, okay, because that is okay,
So that was the Elon lie. Then Donald Trump said no,
(23:22):
actually it's one hundred million dollars for gozzen condoms.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
Like Jnald Trump discussing his penis, he doubles it at
least any number.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
So fifty million dollars for condoms. The USAID, which has
now been taken apart, because why would you do a
nominal amount of money to countries we have bombed and
destroyed they don't need it and saw power what is
that usaid? Okay, condoms when they buy condoms, they are
five cents apiece. Fifty million would be one billion condoms.
Speaker 4 (23:56):
Look, I don't care what level of fertility and ficundancy
your people rock in any country. Nobody's fucking that much.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Right. Well, and also let us pause for a second.
And by the way, I love Elon Musk. So Elon said,
not everything I say is going to be correct. Yeah, yeah,
but it turns out that this is not even close
to correct, right. It turns out that it was not
fifty million dollars for condoms for Gaza, but in fact,
it was going to be sixty eight million dollars from
(24:26):
USA to IMC, which has two field hospitals in Gaza
offering surgical care, malnutrition treatment, and emergency newborn and mother care. Okay,
so that's it, But.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
Molly more importantly, the actual program that sent condoms to
Africa was part of PEPFAR, and they weren't sending that
many condoms. They were mostly sending oral contraceptives. It was
part of PEPFAR. The anti HIV program that is that
is universally considered by Republicans and Democrats alike to be
one of the best things we've ever done.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Created by George W. Famous liberal George W.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
Bush, Like I said, no one left or right before
Donald Trump Will could go, oh man, let's not try
to prevent AIDS in Africa. That would be bad if
we did that.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
And you know who loves this fucking program, the anti
choice zalence. They love it because it's quote unquote life right,
so they call it so they claim. So I mean, look,
you know you got a country run by a guy
who's a thrice married adulterer. He is being helped by
the richest man in the world.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
A majority of the kids born by IVF, and several
of them were born by surrogates.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Right, and honestly, that's fine, except that the thing that
in Trump worlds, which I think is incredible, is that
they want to make it so that a fertilized egg
has the same rights as a person, which is going
to really mess up IVF, even if you're going to
if you're allowed to even get it.
Speaker 4 (25:51):
Of course, look, and you know I'm not the first
person to make this observation, but if Barack Obama had
five kids by three different baby mamas, the Republicans would
have never stopped calling him.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
The worst and had one even if he had just
been divorced. I mean, you don't even have to have
five kids. He could have just been divorced and they
would have had a fit.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Right. And if his chief advisor, who was running roughshot
through the government databasis stealing your private information, had thirteen
children by I don't know, five or seven whatever it
is baby mama's and the most recent one was a
maga influencer, which I guess would be the equivalent of
she worked at the media matters or something. Right, They
would be losing their goddamn minds over it, And yet
(26:35):
there is this underpinning of well, they're just it's white
replacement theory. So, you know, I mean some people, someone's
got to step up and do it.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Brohe chilbra is the former director of the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau and previous member of the Federal Trade Commission.
Welcome to Fast Politics, Rowhead, Thanks so much, so explain
to us what the CFPB is or was.
Speaker 5 (27:05):
So during the financial crisis, there was a huge realization
that there was no agency that was actually enforcing the
law when it came to predatory lending, when it came
to banking and payments. So they set up a new
agency fully responsible for making sure that people weren't cheated
(27:28):
when they took out a loan or got a bank account.
And over the years, the CFPP has recovered tens of
billions of dollars, going up against some of the biggest
and most powerful companies in America Wells Fargo, Navviant, JP,
Morgan Chase, and the list goes on and on. And
that money has made a big difference in so many
(27:51):
people's lives.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Can you explain to us for the people who are
not just completely read in on the two thousand and
eight financial crisis. I personally lived through it, so I
feel really clear on what happened, But explain what the
sort of symptoms of the problem were that caused the
CFPB to be created.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
Well, people might remember that in the years leading up
to two thousand and eight, we saw an explosion of
really sketchy mortgages. They were first pedaled in places like
Nevada and Arizona and California and Florida, but it really
infected the entire country, and Wall Street was profiting even
(28:38):
when homeowners were set up to fail. We saw big
financial firms take big bets that ultimately made them go
belly up. The result was a lot of illegal foreclosures
in communities across the country. We lost trillions of dollars
in wealth. And you know what, people are still pretty
(29:01):
angry that the banks and financial companies responsible many of
them got bailed out, they got bigger, and almost no
executive went to jail. There's a lot of residual anger
about that from the families who were most deeply affected
their kids who are about to go to college. They
(29:23):
ended up borrowing big because their families couldn't afford it,
and the effects of that financial crisis are still being
felt today.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
So when the CFPB was formed, and it was formed
by Congress, right, because that's how these things work, what
were some of the tangible things that it did, like
tell us about a lawsuit or something where pursued money
and got it back for a consumer.
Speaker 5 (29:50):
Well, here's what Congress did. What they did is they
shut down an agency that was clearly failing, and they
set up a new agency that stripped a lot of
authorities that were spread across the federal government, and they
parked it in one place. And here was what was
(30:11):
really important about the CFPB. Instead of just looking only
at banks who are chartered by states in the federal government,
the CFPP was on the hook for looking at all
of the other financial companies too, payday lenders, the non
bank companies offering mortgages that were often at the center
(30:32):
of those subprime mortgages that went bad. And that's really
the bulk of the work. So if you take a
look during my time as head of the CFPB, we
recovered billions of dollars. One was Wells Fargo, who we
caught engaging in illegal auto repossessions double dipping of fees.
(30:54):
We just a few weeks ago, in fact, just before
Inauguration Day, found serious breakdowns a cash app, one of
the most popular payment apps for many student loan barwers.
They know the company Naviant that manages their student loans,
and we permanently ban Naviant from bidding on contracts to
(31:16):
manage federal student loans. And the list really goes on
and on, and there's active litigation with companies like Capital Want,
who we allege have taken billions of dollars in interest
that they should have given to sabers. So it's so
much standing up to these big companies that break the law,
and the results have been really positive.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
So it sounds like this organization it's set up to
stop big companies from taking advantage of the little people.
Speaker 5 (31:48):
Yeah, it's really fighting crime against consumers all over the
country and also making sure that new abuses can't spread.
I mean, we've put a lot of work into stopping
some of the worst abuses on junk fees, where you're
charged three fees instead of just one, or when it
comes to medical bills, So many Americans get these medical bills,
(32:12):
they're double billed, or their insurance company already paid it
and they're being asked to pay again, and they get
coerced by deck collectors who park it on their credit reports,
blocking their ability to get a loan or a job
or an apartment. So the CFPP has been trying to
stay ahead of what the next big problems are and
(32:35):
ultimately serving as a police force against Wall Street and
big tech companies that are breaking the law.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
So now what happened to CFPP, Well.
Speaker 5 (32:49):
Here's what we're hearing. What we're hearing is that the
new leadership has issued a stomp work order, in other
words words, turn off all law enforcement activity, all investigations
of consumer complaints and everything else. We're hearing that thousands
(33:11):
of people every day file complaints with the CFPB against
companies that maybe have mistreated them. We're hearing that that's
not necessarily working now for everybody. So it does seem
that this is part of an initiative to defund the
police that oversee some of these financial companies. And I
(33:32):
just think that that is going to be a recipe
for big problems not just for consumers, but for all
those companies that are following the law and are going
to need to compete with cheaters.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
And didn't rous Vatt say something about CFPB.
Speaker 5 (33:49):
Pi's now the head of the CFPB right, and my
understanding is that the new leadership has really stopped all
activity and has even begun to fire peace.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
If you wanted to reduce government waste and fraud, right,
and you wanted to keep private sector companies from committing
fraud against taxpayers, wouldn't CFP be the Consumer Protection Fraud
Bureau be the place that you would focus, like, if
you wanted to protect taxpayers. I mean, why would you
(34:22):
disassemble something like this if you wanted to weed out corruption.
Speaker 5 (34:27):
Well, this is what's a little bit weird, is that
there's lots of places where there are laws on the
books that don't get enforced. We actually need law enforcement
to root out fraud and abuse in our marketplaces because
it costs It costs the public billions and billions of dollars.
(34:51):
And I think that's everyone knows that Americans are struggling
with the cost of living a lot, housing, auto insurance,
credit card interest rates have shot through the roof, and
this is an agency that really is about saving people
money and making costs more competitive and upfront and fair.
(35:15):
So I'm not sure what's going on here. What I
think many businesses have reached out to me and others
have wondered, is this really about the CFPB's work to
look under the hood at the big tech companies that
are increasingly getting into banking and to payments. You may
remember Malli that Facebook wanted to create its own currency.
(35:38):
Google and Apple now have extremely popular payment services that
many people tap their phone with to make payments. And
also we've heard that x or Twitter has entered into
a new deal with Visa to really be trafficking more
and more of our transactions and our payments, and those
(36:00):
types of activities are really subject to a lot of
federal laws to make sure that consumers aren't subjected to
errors and fraud and hacks, and that certainly was a
place we needed the CFPB to look closely at given
the explosion of fraud and impersonation that was going on.
(36:21):
So I'm not sure exactly what's going on, but we
know that there is a lot of interest in stopping
that oversight work from these powerful firms.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Let's talk for a minute about why you think that
Trump world. I mean, Elon Musk's whole thing is he
wants to end fraud and waste. So if you want
to end fraud and waste, wouldn't this be I mean,
is this agency very expensive? Talk to me about that.
Speaker 5 (36:51):
Well, it's a smaller agency than most of the agencies
people have heard of, and the amount that it has
generated in savings for consumers has far outstripped its budget.
You know, there's always room to make things work better.
When I was there, I actually eliminated a lot of
(37:15):
the senior positions that were created by my predecessor. We
eliminated certain activities that just weren't serving consumer as well.
But in some places we expanded. We increased the number
of people conducting investigations and helping people who had complaints.
So this is a really good bang for the buck.
(37:37):
And let me just be CLEARBOLLI, it's not like there's
any other regulator who's doing this. So by defunding it
or even by killing it, that's just a green light
for fraudsters. And frankly, I think it's begging for another
financial crisis that targets homeowners or borrowers or consumers at large.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Yeah, clearly, it is really important that these companies be
hold to account. What about the argument that companies want
to do that somehow they can hold themselves accountable. Talk
to us about this idea, because you know, Trump world
and Republicans more broadly hate government regulation. They tend to
(38:20):
feel that any kind of regulation is an attack on capitalism.
Explain to us why that's not true.
Speaker 5 (38:26):
Yeah, well, here's why you need some rules. In many places.
You know, someone might argue, well, if people are getting
bad service, they can just take their business elsewhere. You know,
that's just not really true. In so much of our lives,
we don't choose to do business with big credit reporting
companies like Experience and Equifax and TransUnion. When we take
(38:50):
out a mortgage, we don't choose who the mortgage servicer
is who collects on our loan. So consumers are often
captive and trapped. And we've all experienced this. We've all
been in situations where big corporate monopolies have to do
business with them and nothing really polices them. And in
(39:13):
some cases, Molly, we may not even know when we're
being screwed over. For example, our data might be illegally
harvested from us, or the interest rate calculation is manipulated
so that we're paying more in interest or earning less
(39:33):
interest on our savings accounts. So I'm just not sure
that a free for all does anything except for help
those who break the law. And I honestly really sympathize
with a lot of the banks and other financial companies
that do a good job of following the law, and
(39:54):
they feel like chumps if the big guys are just
breaking the law with impunity and face no consequences.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
Right, That's what happened in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 5 (40:04):
In the lead up to two thousand and eight, we
saw this that there were so many types of companies
that were not subject to the same oversight as your
main street bank is. Some of them were very big players,
taking huge risks and making big money until it all
blew up. And that's part of what we do is
(40:26):
make sure that we are looking, we are monitoring what
consumers are experiencing. We're digging in to specific files where
we think there might be fraud and abuse, and then
we take companies to court when we need to. And
by the way, we're constantly at the CFPB, we were
(40:47):
constantly outnumbered. We'd have a couple staff members on the
CFPB side and sometimes scores of lawyers on the other.
So it is not an unfair fight. In many ways,
these big companies are much more well resourced to wage
war on When we prosecute crimes. It's an uphill battle
(41:09):
even when operating at full strength.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
So will you explain It seems to me like Trump
World is really backing away from any kind of finding
regulation of companies at all. Largely they're trying to sort
of and you see Trump advertise that that he doesn't
want regulation. Can you explain to us what happens when
(41:32):
companies aren't regulated or give us a little bit of
an example of something that CFEB would take care of
that they're no longer able to take care of.
Speaker 5 (41:42):
Well, here's what's interesting. I think that you've asked the
big question, what is going to happen? When I departed?
I was removed from office, you know, about ten eleven
days ago. I think I really felt that there was
a lot of work where there was real bipartisan support
that my successor could carry the torch on. I'll give
(42:03):
you a couple of examples Donald Trump has actually called
for a cap on credit card interest rates, where we
have seen real price gouging by the biggest credit card issuers.
There's also a serious problem with data, our most sensitive
personal data, including our financial data, being hoovered up and
(42:26):
sold to scammers and spy, including those overseas. We put
in we proposed rules to block some of that. There's
lots of people angry about all of the fees that
they face. Sometimes those fees are charged for services they
didn't even get or didn't want. So there's broad support
(42:49):
from the public for this, and the CFPB could really
carry the torch. I was really struck. A few weeks ago,
President Trump called out Jamie Diamond, Brian moynihan, the CEOs
of JP, Morgan Chase, and Bank of America, for essentially
de banking people based on their views. And the CFPB
(43:12):
actually put forth a proposed rule to stop de banking
based on whatever it may be, religious views or political
views that have nothing to do with holding a bank account.
So I think that is a real tension, that there
are real problems that have been identified, including by Republicans,
(43:34):
that the CFPB is very well equipped to fix.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
Yeah, it's a mystery. Why if you care about ending corruption,
you would end a bureau which exists to protect consumers
from corruption.
Speaker 5 (43:49):
Everyone knows that there has been serious breakdowns by big
financial companies. I mean, just in my lifetime, we've seen
everything from a massive savings and loan scandal to an
accounting scandal and of course a financial crisis, and even
just two years ago the failures of Silicon Valley Bank
(44:10):
and other big banks. So it is important that we
gotta be cops on the beat and making sure that
this doesn't ruin people's financial lives.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
Yeah, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 5 (44:25):
Thanks again, Mellie.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
Moment, Rick Wilson.
Speaker 4 (44:33):
Mollie johnck Fast. Are we doing fuckery?
Speaker 1 (44:35):
We are doing fuckery? You ready for my.
Speaker 4 (44:37):
I'll let you go, I'll let you lead off on
the fuckery.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
Yes please, here's my fuckery for the day. And this
is something I want you to think about because I
think it has huge intended consequences, not unintended. So Elon
mus said he was spending the weekend working on Grock.
He has tweeted this and Grock three is so based
and then laughing emojis and basically it is what is
(45:02):
your opinion on the information. The information is a website.
The information, like most legacy media, is garbage. It's part
of the old Guard, filtered, biased and often serving the
interests of its funders or its editors rather than giving
you the on varnished truth. Let us open the door
to this AI. The whole idea here is that eventually
AI will you know, you will be asking questions to
(45:26):
your phone, and AI will be answering them, and that
will be on a broader scale. That will be everything.
So your computer will be asking another computer a question,
and AI will be the intelligence behind it. If this
intelligence believes that everything that is left leaning or even
just normal is profoundly left leaning, and everything that is
(45:47):
far right is actually accurate, imagine what happens next.
Speaker 4 (45:52):
Oh, I can easily imagine it. And it is horrifying,
and it is terrifying. And sell your fucking toughs. Don't
pay for Twitter. I mean, look, Elon Musk is the
richest man in the world and we all know it.
But he is the richest man in the world because
the stock price of one company, Tesla Motor Cars, is
wildly disproportionate to its actual value. That is what sustains Twitter,
(46:16):
which has been losing money handover fists since he overpaid
by a factor of ten for it. All of this stuff, guys,
all of this You have to approach anything with AI
very judiciously and very carefully. I do think he is
trying to set up an easy to use, free AI
that will feed people based talking points and all right
talking points because that's useful to him.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
Right, and also to change the narrative to make everything
all right, to make all right normal. I mean, this
is the goal here, and that's why they're going to
war with Wikipedia. That's because the goal here is to
shift the entire culture to a more apartheid South Africa state.
Speaker 4 (46:56):
Well, look at this is kind of information apartheid. They're
looking to buy the people that they want to keep
in their orbit into an information ecosystem that is only
feeding them the same sort of thing in a primitive
way that Rush Limbaugh fed his talk radio audience, that
Rupert Murdoch fed the Fox TV audience, that Bright Bart
(47:17):
and Gateway Pundit and Alex Jones and the rest of
this vomitous slurry of right wing agit prop dipshits. It's
the natural successor to that stuff and it's grotesque, but
it's here. Rick Wilson, my jog fast as always a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best
minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. 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 Marco Rubio says Europe and Ukraine
will be a part of the Russian peace talks, though
that actually is maybe not true. We have such a
great show for you today. The Lincoln Project's own Rick
(00:23):
Wilson joins us to discuss Trump's latest dictator language. Then
we'll talk to former Consumer Financial Protection Bureau head row
heat Chobra about the accomplishments of the organization and why
Trump ended it. But first the news.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
So Malli RFK Junior got right to work dismantling the CDC,
just as we feared he would. And I don't like this.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
You'll be shocked to know that RFK Junior is doing
all the anti science stuff he has long advertised himself
to be. By the way, I just want to pause
for a minute here and say, like, we're basically in
between pandemics. We have bird flu, we got birds dying,
we got cows, a person got bird flu, they had
(01:16):
pink eye. There are all sorts of reasons not to
gut public health organizations, and yet here we are the
Trump administration fired nearly half of the members of the
vaulted public health program that works on the frontlines of
disease outbreaks. You don't need it only a day after
anti vax or conspiracy theorist and might add lover of
(01:40):
many women who are not his wife.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
You could say it because it's true of a lot
of people in this administration.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Yes, yes, yes, and members of this intelligence service, which
deals with etymology. Thirteen hundred layoffs there at the Center
for Disease Control and Prevention. We don't have diseases, so
that should be fine. Look, he is stripping the Health
and Human Services staff. He's doing this. And look again,
(02:07):
Remember there are two things to remember here. One is
this is about this larger ethos of Project twenty twenty five. Right,
dismantle the federal government, make it small, make it inefficient,
make it not work so that the people don't believe
in it. Right, that's part of it. And then part
of it is you put someone who really is against
(02:27):
almost all of the important and meaningful parts of public
health in charge of the public health agency. So like
the fact that this is happening, no one should be surprised. Right,
this is exactly how we thought it would go. Some
of the people that he laid off, experts from this
EIS have been dispatched for decades to investigate disease outbreaks
(02:48):
in the United States and abroad. Disease outbreaks. Well, it's
good because we don't have diseases anymore, so that should
be fine. And you know these are high paying jobs, right,
millions of millionaires. Now, I mean, this is fucking ic right.
These are the people who investigated anthrax, investigated.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Abula, which we just got two cases of in New York.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Right, this is absolutely insane. Stat News reports the entire
incoming class, sixty to eighty people were told their positions
have been canceled. This is so fucking stupid. This is
cutting a tiny bit of money to cost a lot
more money soon. And I want to add that we
should not be surprised that these people are doing stupid
(03:29):
destructive things. Stupid destructive things are what they said they
would do, and now they are doing it. So welcome, welcome, welcome.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
So the Republicans have unveiled their budget, and I'm going
to shock you here, Molly. The economists say it'll disproportionately
benefit the one percent.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Never what that's crazy talk. So House GOP's budget proposal,
which ames four point five trillion dollar tax cut but
only for a very very much people with roughly two
trillion and spending cuts, but likely that those spending cuts
will only affect the very poor and also the people
who need healthcare and also people who are affected by diseases.
(04:09):
This was always trickle down economics. None of us should
be surprised that these people are trying to practice the
sort of worst of Reaganism and the worst of Bannonism.
So here we are. They want to cut two trillion
in spending, cut taxes four point five trillion, and the
(04:29):
good news is and also in top line numbers, Republicans
are hoping to pay for their gigantic tax cut for
very wealthy people by reducing spending between one point five
and two trillion. By the way, Medicaid in case you're wondering, Medicaid,
which is the healthcare for poor people that is in
their crosshairs because it always has been. House Republican leadership
(04:51):
has specifically asked the Energy and Commerce Committee to find
eight hundred and eighty billion dollars in cuts over the
next ten years. This is all I want to pause
again to pay four tax cuts for very wealthy people.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
And funny enough, though US in the resistance have an
ally in one Steve Bannon, who warns Trump and Musk
that they shouldn't cut Medicaid because there's loads of mega
that is on Medicaid.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Yes, you will be shocked to know. Look, Steve Bannon,
you may not agree with him, but he is very smart.
I mean I don't agree with him, and nor should
you agree with him. And we most people don't agree
with him, but don't use a meat axe. Steve Bannon
warns Trump and Musk that loads of megas are on Medicare. Again.
You know, one of the things that we've seen with
(05:38):
Steve Bannon is that he actually really is smart and
pays attention to what's going on. I do not agree
with him. I've said this before, but he said he
warned that many of Trump's mega supporters rely heavily on Medicaid,
a subsidy for low income Americans, and not to take
a meat axe to the program more than six hundred
(05:58):
billion dollars when to Medicaid last year. Bannon nevertheless wants
to cut programs to help whack away at the one
point eight trillion dollars in debt. I mean, yes, the
whole goal here is to cut spending, is to cut
the things that you have gotten from the government, right
to cut away at that. So we shouldn't be surprised.
But Bannon is smart, and Bannon wants to keep winning elections,
(06:21):
and he knows if you do this to the people
who voted for you, then they won't vote for you again.
I mean, that's just math. Right. One of the things
that Trump was able to do in his first term
was he was able to have set all this crazy stuff,
but a lot of it didn't happen because Democrats were
able to prevent him from doing it, so people didn't
(06:42):
believe he would do it. This time, there are no
checks and balances, and there's a real opportunity here for
Donald Trump just to do the craziest stuff. And that's
where we are.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Fun times. Speaking of doing crazy stuff, Borders Are, Tom
Homan has suggested that the DOJ should prosecut AOC.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
So this is one of these dumb things. It's dumb
because it's just bullshit. Right. So Tom Holman, who was
the Borders Are, he actually worked under Obama and had
some kind of weird meltdown and now has become completely
a zealot as zealot when.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
He's not embarrassing Eric Adams on air.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Yeah, that amazing interview on Fox and Friends. But anyway,
so that guy said that AOC could have broken the
law by holding a webinar informing immigrants of the rights
during encounters with ice. Now there's no law against that.
It's covered under this amendment. That Republicans are so concerned
about the First Amendment, the freedom of speech. I mean,
(07:42):
they don't love it as much as the Second Amendment,
but it still gets a lot of play. It's a
stupid thing because it can't happen, and it's not true.
This is this Republican bravado, this idea that if you
say something we don't like, we think you should go
to jail, or we think you should be prosecuted. And
Dana Bash asked Tom Holman, do you think that she
(08:03):
should be prosecuted about AOC, and he suggests he said,
I am suggesting that I would ask the Department of Justice,
where's the line on implementation. I think that that's a
broad statute. I mean, look, it's so dumb. I mean,
it's so dumb, and it is meant to be a distraction.
But remember so much of the Sadman is about doing
(08:25):
things to get attention. Maybe he wants to get the
big guy to see it. Maybe he thinks that Trump
will love him more if he picks on AOSA. Shouldn't
be surprised about this. Rick Wilson is the founder of
the Lincoln Project and the host of the Enemy's List
Welcome Back, Too Fast Politics, Rick Wilson.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
Hello, comrade, this was the weekend when, even though what
Trump is doing has been bad, I feel like this
was the.
Speaker 1 (08:58):
Weekend where we were like, all my a month into
this experiment, and this was a weekend where I was like,
oh wait, what not me?
Speaker 4 (09:08):
I mean, look, I have expected this, this increasing tempo
and the increasing outrageousness of it, and the increasing degree
to which the Democrats have still yet to grapple with
how to deal with it.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Right, First, we need to talk about the Trump tweet
that is Napoleonic. We need to talk about the providence
of it. It's not actually Napoleon. It's a movie about Napoleon.
Speaker 5 (09:35):
Right, correct.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
It's from the nineteen seventy film Waterloo by Robsteiger.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Say more. If you dare.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
This is the classic problem with Trump and his people.
They find something superficial, like that famous quote from Abraham
Lincoln about you can't trust anything on the Internet, and
so they'll run with shit like that. They will not understand,
and they still refuse to understand that the presidency of
the United States, even with a crapulous fuck wit like
(10:08):
Donald Trump in the office, that words matter, that assertions
like that matter. And let's be very clear, Napoleon Bonaparte
was a dictator. I've written I am unfortunately in one
of one of my mani historical rabbit holes. I've studied
a lot about the Napoleonic Wars, and I've written a
lot about Napoleon. I've written a lot about the French Revolution,
(10:29):
partly because Trump idolizes a person like Napoleon, because he
believes he got away with things because he took power
and no one could resist him taking power. This is
what Trump idolizes most. This is why we're now on
the wrong side of history. This is why our allies
now are putin g mbs and Kim Jong un because
(10:51):
he loves that quote. But let me tell you something.
I read it, and I knew it's provenance, and I
knew it was one of those famous sort of faux
historical whatevers. What Donald Trump was doing there wasn't just
asserting his own power. He was also sending a very
very very loud dog whistle through a billion assholes. That
was the moral equivalent of saying, we're going to march
(11:13):
down to the Capitol because if you don't, you're going
to lose your country.
Speaker 1 (11:16):
Right, And Nate got very excited by it. But I
want to point out, just for two seconds, just back
to this quote. So it's a line from a screenplay
from a nineteen seventies movie which David from SAZ was
funded by the Russian government and then Waterlieu with Rod Steiger,
Christopher Blummer and sixteen thousand Red Army extras. But I mean, look,
(11:37):
the message here is the same message we're hearing from JD. Ben's,
is the same message we always hear from Trump, right,
which is I am an autocrat and I the laws
don't apply to me, which is, you know, none of
this should be surprising, but all of it should be galvanizing.
Speaker 4 (11:51):
It should be I desperately need the folks out there
to not normalize this in your head. I desperately need
people out there to really think this through what it means.
This is intentionality on his part. This is clarity on
what he will do and will try to get away with.
Napoleon inherited from the French Revolution an internal security mechanism
(12:12):
that would persecute, prosecute, or kill opponents.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Right, But there's no way that Trump knows.
Speaker 4 (12:18):
He knows that he defied convention, he defied law, he
defied order, he defied the constitutional for what it was
framework of how France was organized in or Trump knows
those things at an ansert visceral level. But Molly, it's
also an invitation to these assholes out there. Oh, if
you attack Trump's opponents, now you're doing it for the country,
(12:41):
so you're not breaking the law.
Speaker 1 (12:42):
There's a lot of wink wing, no, no, let's go,
And that's always been true for Trump and iatarily worrying. Now.
The problem on the other side is that Democrats are
having real trouble breaking through. Some of them are out there,
some of them are trying, but it's not connecting for
whatever reason. So let's talk about what they could do
to break through. Let's not even trash then, let's just
get going on like solutions.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
Okay, here's a solution. Build an apatrol rapid response team
of actual rapid responders. It's not members of Congress. Okay,
more about that right now. The average age of the
people on the Democratic rapid response team, a fucking kid,
you not, is seventy seven years old. This is insane.
You need a bunch of pipe swinging young people to
get out there and be on the rapid response front
(13:25):
every day, grinding out these messages, giving them to members
and saying, hey, in your district, Congressman Smith, here's how
many people are getting fucked by this tariff deal. Here's
how many people are getting hurt by firing some government jobs.
Here's how many veterans don't get suicide prevention care. Now
they should be driving information into the hands of every
(13:46):
member of Congress, and Hakeem Jeffries should be there with
a baseball bat going to every member saying, have you
communicated to your district every single one of these facts.
Are you pushing this out to your local media, to
local radio, to local newspapers, to local influencers. Are you
blasting your email list every day? Not just asking for
fundraising but telling people in your district, in your state,
(14:09):
telling them, get on the phone to your Republican neighbor,
get on the phone and spread this message. Here's how
you're being hurt. Here's how Trump is fucking you. Here's
how Trump is burning your community to the goddamn ground.
That is a message out there. The rapid response faces
need to be the members of Congress, and they need
to be aggressive about it. The team needs to be
(14:30):
a bunch of pipe swinging, vicious, bloodthirsty motherfuckers who are
out there try to have the maximum pain on Republicans
in their districts and their states. They should be laying
in as much pain as they can. If Congressman Smith,
a Democrat, is next door to Congressman Jones, a Republican,
in their districts, he should be in that guy's fucking
(14:50):
district saying you're getting screwed by this guy. You're getting
screwed by this guy. Trump is hurting you. He is
hurting you.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
But there's a ton to sort of work off of.
For example, R. FK. Junior, you may have heard of him.
Some of the people Trump has put in this cabinet.
I don't even want to say they're crazy, because crazy
is probably the wrong word for whatever it is.
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Evil Molly, evils, the what are you're looking for?
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Yeah? But RFK Junior, he has decided that he's going
to target one of America's greatest problems, which is antidepressant Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
because depressed people are obviously much better for the country.
And I mean, this is the problem antidepressants, right. RFK
(15:37):
Junior is like an ad for Democrats right every single day.
And the fact that Donald Trump put him in there,
I guess because RFK got a lot of voters for
Trump is insane. And I think there's a real question
about why we are not talking about RFK Junior every
minute of every day.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
We ought to be talking about RFK Junior every minute
of every day. We ought to be targeting suburban mothers. Hey, Democrats,
here's a free one for you. Get an ad campaign
running right now into Republican districts for suburban mommies, and
you tell them over and over again, RFK wants your
daughter to get cervical cancer because he wants to ban
Gardisil because he's in a lawsuit. One of his law
(16:17):
firms is suing the manufacture of Gardazil, because that's what
they do, that's their business model.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Is to sue.
Speaker 4 (16:23):
But I think you should be telling Republican women out
there in the country, they should be advertising because they're
still sitting and they and future four it is still
sitting on a giant mountain of money. They should be
advertising to these people saying, say goodbye to your daughter.
She may not died today, but there's a chance she'll
die of cervical cancer. Preventable cancer, cancer that has a
(16:45):
safe and effective medicine that treats it, but no longer
because Robert F. Kennedy, Donald Trump's Health and Human Services secretary,
is taking it away. Yes, I mean, it's not like
I do this in my sleep or anything, but but
I can't understand why they can't recognize you can't just
go out there and say and I saw this the
other day. It was like, what did Democrats do about
on this day? And one of the two of the
(17:07):
bullets were just like, we offered to continue to bring
up a resolution to reintroduce the Veterans Nice Puppies and
Kittens Act or whatever the fuck it was. It's just like,
come on.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
No, I know, but they just need to be focused.
And I think part of the problem is a lot
of these people are very elderly, so they remember a
time when there was a rich and robust mainstream media
that would highlight abuses. That mainstream media is gone, right,
that does not have the world works anymore. The media
is of the New York Times and that is it.
(17:39):
And so there is no one who is going to
draw attention to these abuses if they don't do it.
So if they ever want to win elections again, and
it's not even just about winning elections, you have constituents
in this country who are very angry as well, they
should be right people in the federal government. I mean
this weekend, Elon Musk, the richest man in the world,
(18:00):
he fired the people who watch the nukes for ten hours. Okay,
you need those people, you need those people, thank you.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
So in an area in which all the members of
our family have had some encounters with the National Nuclear
Surity Administration, I can tell you these people do something
really important. They are folks who provide security and oversight
for nuclear weapons.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Preventing a nuclear holocaust. Like you just can't get people
off the street to do that.
Speaker 4 (18:30):
And the purpose of nuclear weapons is to not use them,
ironically enough, but you do have to monitor them and
make them safe and keep them carefully locked away from
idiots and make sure that they're all accounted for at
all times.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
And yet, but the thing that gets me the most
sort of agitated about all of this, if you can
believe it, is like this is to pay for tax
cuts for very much people. This is not because there's
some huge financial crisis. This is not because there is
some budget shortfall that none of us saw coming. This
(19:06):
is because Donald Trump does not want the tax cuts
to expire. I mean, you know, and I think there's
like a real lack of understanding there, right, Like these
are tax cuts that should expire that you know, their
corporate tax cuts. No one wants a corporate fucking tax cut.
Nobody wants that that's not for anyone but very rich
people and tax cuts for billionaires. Let these fucking tax
(19:27):
cuts expire. It is insane. I would also add that
I think that this rabbit hole that we're in, like
should be messaged as this is the richest man in
the entire world. He is interested in keeping his taxes low.
He is cutting cancer research period paragraph.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
Yeah, and he gets upset when you mentioned that he's
cutting cancer research, which, by the way, guys, considering what
a sociopathic weirdo he is, when even Elon Musk gets
that imaging him with taking away kids cancer treatment is bad,
you know, it's really bad.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
But it's also you know, it's like the right thing
to be saying, right, because he has some sense of
what is going to hurt him, and that is something
that's gonna hurt him. But I want to like just
pull back for a minute and pause and think about
for a second sort of the unintended consequences we are
hurtling towards here. There was a headline in the New
(20:24):
York Post. Again, I do not, you know, Rupert Murdock
owned New York Post, that there was an abola scare.
I have a number of reasons not to believe this.
Number one, it's the New York Post, number two, whatever.
But the point is, like, there is a real pandemic.
There's there's bird flu already, it's in the milk of
the cows. So like, could be nukes, could be the economy,
it could be bird flu, could be weather. I mean,
(20:46):
there are so many things that could be terrorism. I mean,
there's so many possible terrible things that could happen when
you dismantle the federal government. And there's no reason to
do this except for tax cuts for very rich people
and ideological beliefs rich people. I mean, there is, as
I see it, no other reason.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
The reason for the tax cuts is exclusively so that Elon,
Peter Thiel, David Zas and a cluster of hedge fund
bros and crypto bros can get their income tax burden
down to essentially somewhere around zero. There is nothing built
into this tax cut. If you make under three hundred
and sixty some thousand dollars a year, you are going
(21:26):
to pay more in taxes. If your kids get college loans,
you're going to be taxed on those fucking college loans
and scholarships. I mean, none of this is going to
help anybody that is not in the eight zero's class
of Americans. It also puts the lie to all there, Oh,
we've got to go through the government and cut every
job out because we're in such deep debt. Okay, right now,
(21:49):
if you trimmed out every bit of what professionals think
about at the fraud and waste level, you trim out
a few billion dollars here in there. Okay, you trim
out three to five percent of the budget, call it waste.
They're asking for ten trillion dollars, four trillion dollars to
keep up the Trump's spending plans, and then that additional
(22:11):
load is going to go to pay for a tax
cut for about two hundred and fifty people in this country.
I know a lot of people they don't like thinking
about the sort of Luigi problem. But we're going to
enter into guillotine and tumbril territory if they pass this
tax cut, because ordinary people are going they're going to
end up in a situation where they completely are financially fucked.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, and they're already. I mean. Look,
Trump was elected to make things less expensive, right, that
was what he said. I'm going to make eggs, so
I was sold. Right, if you can fucking find eggs,
there is expensive. I spent sixty dollars on three things
of eggs. Okay, thirty six eggs. Sixty dollars. Now that
(22:54):
seems like a lot to me.
Speaker 4 (22:56):
I was told that prices were going to come down
immediately because it was going to be so beautiful.
Speaker 1 (23:01):
Right, But so price is not going down, but you're
getting less stuff from the government. Make it make sense.
But I want to pause for a minute because I
want We're going to spend two minutes talking about fifty
million dollars to Gaza for condoms, okay, because that is okay,
So that was the Elon lie. Then Donald Trump said no,
(23:22):
actually it's one hundred million dollars for gozzen condoms.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
Like Jnald Trump discussing his penis, he doubles it at
least any number.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
So fifty million dollars for condoms. The USAID, which has
now been taken apart, because why would you do a
nominal amount of money to countries we have bombed and
destroyed they don't need it and saw power what is
that usaid? Okay, condoms when they buy condoms, they are
five cents apiece. Fifty million would be one billion condoms.
Speaker 4 (23:56):
Look, I don't care what level of fertility and ficundancy
your people rock in any country. Nobody's fucking that much.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Right. Well, and also let us pause for a second.
And by the way, I love Elon Musk. So Elon said,
not everything I say is going to be correct. Yeah, yeah,
but it turns out that this is not even close
to correct, right. It turns out that it was not
fifty million dollars for condoms for Gaza, but in fact,
it was going to be sixty eight million dollars from
(24:26):
USA to IMC, which has two field hospitals in Gaza
offering surgical care, malnutrition treatment, and emergency newborn and mother care. Okay,
so that's it, But.
Speaker 4 (24:39):
Molly more importantly, the actual program that sent condoms to
Africa was part of PEPFAR, and they weren't sending that
many condoms. They were mostly sending oral contraceptives. It was
part of PEPFAR. The anti HIV program that is that
is universally considered by Republicans and Democrats alike to be
one of the best things we've ever done.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
Created by George W. Famous liberal George W.
Speaker 4 (25:03):
Bush, Like I said, no one left or right before
Donald Trump Will could go, oh man, let's not try
to prevent AIDS in Africa. That would be bad if
we did that.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
And you know who loves this fucking program, the anti
choice zalence. They love it because it's quote unquote life right,
so they call it so they claim. So I mean, look,
you know you got a country run by a guy
who's a thrice married adulterer. He is being helped by
the richest man in the world.
Speaker 4 (25:28):
A majority of the kids born by IVF, and several
of them were born by surrogates.
Speaker 1 (25:33):
Right, and honestly, that's fine, except that the thing that
in Trump worlds, which I think is incredible, is that
they want to make it so that a fertilized egg
has the same rights as a person, which is going
to really mess up IVF, even if you're going to
if you're allowed to even get it.
Speaker 4 (25:51):
Of course, look, and you know I'm not the first
person to make this observation, but if Barack Obama had
five kids by three different baby mamas, the Republicans would
have never stopped calling him.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
The worst and had one even if he had just
been divorced. I mean, you don't even have to have
five kids. He could have just been divorced and they
would have had a fit.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
Right. And if his chief advisor, who was running roughshot
through the government databasis stealing your private information, had thirteen
children by I don't know, five or seven whatever it
is baby mama's and the most recent one was a
maga influencer, which I guess would be the equivalent of
she worked at the media matters or something. Right, They
would be losing their goddamn minds over it, And yet
(26:35):
there is this underpinning of well, they're just it's white
replacement theory. So, you know, I mean some people, someone's
got to step up and do it.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Brohe chilbra is the former director of the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau and previous member of the Federal Trade Commission.
Welcome to Fast Politics, Rowhead, Thanks so much, so explain
to us what the CFPB is or was.
Speaker 5 (27:05):
So during the financial crisis, there was a huge realization
that there was no agency that was actually enforcing the
law when it came to predatory lending, when it came
to banking and payments. So they set up a new
agency fully responsible for making sure that people weren't cheated
(27:28):
when they took out a loan or got a bank account.
And over the years, the CFPP has recovered tens of
billions of dollars, going up against some of the biggest
and most powerful companies in America Wells Fargo, Navviant, JP,
Morgan Chase, and the list goes on and on. And
that money has made a big difference in so many
(27:51):
people's lives.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Can you explain to us for the people who are
not just completely read in on the two thousand and
eight financial crisis. I personally lived through it, so I
feel really clear on what happened, But explain what the
sort of symptoms of the problem were that caused the
CFPB to be created.
Speaker 5 (28:13):
Well, people might remember that in the years leading up
to two thousand and eight, we saw an explosion of
really sketchy mortgages. They were first pedaled in places like
Nevada and Arizona and California and Florida, but it really
infected the entire country, and Wall Street was profiting even
(28:38):
when homeowners were set up to fail. We saw big
financial firms take big bets that ultimately made them go
belly up. The result was a lot of illegal foreclosures
in communities across the country. We lost trillions of dollars
in wealth. And you know what, people are still pretty
(29:01):
angry that the banks and financial companies responsible many of
them got bailed out, they got bigger, and almost no
executive went to jail. There's a lot of residual anger
about that from the families who were most deeply affected
their kids who are about to go to college. They
(29:23):
ended up borrowing big because their families couldn't afford it,
and the effects of that financial crisis are still being
felt today.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
So when the CFPB was formed, and it was formed
by Congress, right, because that's how these things work, what
were some of the tangible things that it did, like
tell us about a lawsuit or something where pursued money
and got it back for a consumer.
Speaker 5 (29:50):
Well, here's what Congress did. What they did is they
shut down an agency that was clearly failing, and they
set up a new agency that stripped a lot of
authorities that were spread across the federal government, and they
parked it in one place. And here was what was
(30:11):
really important about the CFPB. Instead of just looking only
at banks who are chartered by states in the federal government,
the CFPP was on the hook for looking at all
of the other financial companies too, payday lenders, the non
bank companies offering mortgages that were often at the center
(30:32):
of those subprime mortgages that went bad. And that's really
the bulk of the work. So if you take a
look during my time as head of the CFPB, we
recovered billions of dollars. One was Wells Fargo, who we
caught engaging in illegal auto repossessions double dipping of fees.
(30:54):
We just a few weeks ago, in fact, just before
Inauguration Day, found serious breakdowns a cash app, one of
the most popular payment apps for many student loan barwers.
They know the company Naviant that manages their student loans,
and we permanently ban Naviant from bidding on contracts to
(31:16):
manage federal student loans. And the list really goes on
and on, and there's active litigation with companies like Capital Want,
who we allege have taken billions of dollars in interest
that they should have given to sabers. So it's so
much standing up to these big companies that break the law,
and the results have been really positive.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
So it sounds like this organization it's set up to
stop big companies from taking advantage of the little people.
Speaker 5 (31:48):
Yeah, it's really fighting crime against consumers all over the
country and also making sure that new abuses can't spread.
I mean, we've put a lot of work into stopping
some of the worst abuses on junk fees, where you're
charged three fees instead of just one, or when it
comes to medical bills, So many Americans get these medical bills,
(32:12):
they're double billed, or their insurance company already paid it
and they're being asked to pay again, and they get
coerced by deck collectors who park it on their credit reports,
blocking their ability to get a loan or a job
or an apartment. So the CFPP has been trying to
stay ahead of what the next big problems are and
(32:35):
ultimately serving as a police force against Wall Street and
big tech companies that are breaking the law.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
So now what happened to CFPP, Well.
Speaker 5 (32:49):
Here's what we're hearing. What we're hearing is that the
new leadership has issued a stomp work order, in other
words words, turn off all law enforcement activity, all investigations
of consumer complaints and everything else. We're hearing that thousands
(33:11):
of people every day file complaints with the CFPB against
companies that maybe have mistreated them. We're hearing that that's
not necessarily working now for everybody. So it does seem
that this is part of an initiative to defund the
police that oversee some of these financial companies. And I
(33:32):
just think that that is going to be a recipe
for big problems not just for consumers, but for all
those companies that are following the law and are going
to need to compete with cheaters.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
And didn't rous Vatt say something about CFPB.
Speaker 5 (33:49):
Pi's now the head of the CFPB right, and my
understanding is that the new leadership has really stopped all
activity and has even begun to fire peace.
Speaker 1 (34:00):
If you wanted to reduce government waste and fraud, right,
and you wanted to keep private sector companies from committing
fraud against taxpayers, wouldn't CFP be the Consumer Protection Fraud
Bureau be the place that you would focus, like, if
you wanted to protect taxpayers. I mean, why would you
(34:22):
disassemble something like this if you wanted to weed out corruption.
Speaker 5 (34:27):
Well, this is what's a little bit weird, is that
there's lots of places where there are laws on the
books that don't get enforced. We actually need law enforcement
to root out fraud and abuse in our marketplaces because
it costs It costs the public billions and billions of dollars.
(34:51):
And I think that's everyone knows that Americans are struggling
with the cost of living a lot, housing, auto insurance,
credit card interest rates have shot through the roof, and
this is an agency that really is about saving people
money and making costs more competitive and upfront and fair.
(35:15):
So I'm not sure what's going on here. What I
think many businesses have reached out to me and others
have wondered, is this really about the CFPB's work to
look under the hood at the big tech companies that
are increasingly getting into banking and to payments. You may
remember Malli that Facebook wanted to create its own currency.
(35:38):
Google and Apple now have extremely popular payment services that
many people tap their phone with to make payments. And
also we've heard that x or Twitter has entered into
a new deal with Visa to really be trafficking more
and more of our transactions and our payments, and those
(36:00):
types of activities are really subject to a lot of
federal laws to make sure that consumers aren't subjected to
errors and fraud and hacks, and that certainly was a
place we needed the CFPB to look closely at given
the explosion of fraud and impersonation that was going on.
(36:21):
So I'm not sure exactly what's going on, but we
know that there is a lot of interest in stopping
that oversight work from these powerful firms.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
Let's talk for a minute about why you think that
Trump world. I mean, Elon Musk's whole thing is he
wants to end fraud and waste. So if you want
to end fraud and waste, wouldn't this be I mean,
is this agency very expensive? Talk to me about that.
Speaker 5 (36:51):
Well, it's a smaller agency than most of the agencies
people have heard of, and the amount that it has
generated in savings for consumers has far outstripped its budget.
You know, there's always room to make things work better.
When I was there, I actually eliminated a lot of
(37:15):
the senior positions that were created by my predecessor. We
eliminated certain activities that just weren't serving consumer as well.
But in some places we expanded. We increased the number
of people conducting investigations and helping people who had complaints.
So this is a really good bang for the buck.
(37:37):
And let me just be CLEARBOLLI, it's not like there's
any other regulator who's doing this. So by defunding it
or even by killing it, that's just a green light
for fraudsters. And frankly, I think it's begging for another
financial crisis that targets homeowners or borrowers or consumers at large.
Speaker 1 (37:58):
Yeah, clearly, it is really important that these companies be
hold to account. What about the argument that companies want
to do that somehow they can hold themselves accountable. Talk
to us about this idea, because you know, Trump world
and Republicans more broadly hate government regulation. They tend to
(38:20):
feel that any kind of regulation is an attack on capitalism.
Explain to us why that's not true.
Speaker 5 (38:26):
Yeah, well, here's why you need some rules. In many places.
You know, someone might argue, well, if people are getting
bad service, they can just take their business elsewhere. You know,
that's just not really true. In so much of our lives,
we don't choose to do business with big credit reporting
companies like Experience and Equifax and TransUnion. When we take
(38:50):
out a mortgage, we don't choose who the mortgage servicer
is who collects on our loan. So consumers are often
captive and trapped. And we've all experienced this. We've all
been in situations where big corporate monopolies have to do
business with them and nothing really polices them. And in
(39:13):
some cases, Molly, we may not even know when we're
being screwed over. For example, our data might be illegally
harvested from us, or the interest rate calculation is manipulated
so that we're paying more in interest or earning less
(39:33):
interest on our savings accounts. So I'm just not sure
that a free for all does anything except for help
those who break the law. And I honestly really sympathize
with a lot of the banks and other financial companies
that do a good job of following the law, and
(39:54):
they feel like chumps if the big guys are just
breaking the law with impunity and face no consequences.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
Right, That's what happened in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 5 (40:04):
In the lead up to two thousand and eight, we
saw this that there were so many types of companies
that were not subject to the same oversight as your
main street bank is. Some of them were very big players,
taking huge risks and making big money until it all
blew up. And that's part of what we do is
(40:26):
make sure that we are looking, we are monitoring what
consumers are experiencing. We're digging in to specific files where
we think there might be fraud and abuse, and then
we take companies to court when we need to. And
by the way, we're constantly at the CFPB, we were
(40:47):
constantly outnumbered. We'd have a couple staff members on the
CFPB side and sometimes scores of lawyers on the other.
So it is not an unfair fight. In many ways,
these big companies are much more well resourced to wage
war on When we prosecute crimes. It's an uphill battle
(41:09):
even when operating at full strength.
Speaker 1 (41:11):
So will you explain It seems to me like Trump
World is really backing away from any kind of finding
regulation of companies at all. Largely they're trying to sort
of and you see Trump advertise that that he doesn't
want regulation. Can you explain to us what happens when
(41:32):
companies aren't regulated or give us a little bit of
an example of something that CFEB would take care of
that they're no longer able to take care of.
Speaker 5 (41:42):
Well, here's what's interesting. I think that you've asked the
big question, what is going to happen? When I departed?
I was removed from office, you know, about ten eleven
days ago. I think I really felt that there was
a lot of work where there was real bipartisan support
that my successor could carry the torch on. I'll give
(42:03):
you a couple of examples Donald Trump has actually called
for a cap on credit card interest rates, where we
have seen real price gouging by the biggest credit card issuers.
There's also a serious problem with data, our most sensitive
personal data, including our financial data, being hoovered up and
(42:26):
sold to scammers and spy, including those overseas. We put
in we proposed rules to block some of that. There's
lots of people angry about all of the fees that
they face. Sometimes those fees are charged for services they
didn't even get or didn't want. So there's broad support
(42:49):
from the public for this, and the CFPB could really
carry the torch. I was really struck. A few weeks ago,
President Trump called out Jamie Diamond, Brian moynihan, the CEOs
of JP, Morgan Chase, and Bank of America, for essentially
de banking people based on their views. And the CFPB
(43:12):
actually put forth a proposed rule to stop de banking
based on whatever it may be, religious views or political
views that have nothing to do with holding a bank account.
So I think that is a real tension, that there
are real problems that have been identified, including by Republicans,
(43:34):
that the CFPB is very well equipped to fix.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
Yeah, it's a mystery. Why if you care about ending corruption,
you would end a bureau which exists to protect consumers
from corruption.
Speaker 5 (43:49):
Everyone knows that there has been serious breakdowns by big
financial companies. I mean, just in my lifetime, we've seen
everything from a massive savings and loan scandal to an
accounting scandal and of course a financial crisis, and even
just two years ago the failures of Silicon Valley Bank
(44:10):
and other big banks. So it is important that we
gotta be cops on the beat and making sure that
this doesn't ruin people's financial lives.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
Yeah, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 5 (44:25):
Thanks again, Mellie.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
Moment, Rick Wilson.
Speaker 4 (44:33):
Mollie johnck Fast. Are we doing fuckery?
Speaker 1 (44:35):
We are doing fuckery? You ready for my.
Speaker 4 (44:37):
I'll let you go, I'll let you lead off on
the fuckery.
Speaker 1 (44:40):
Yes please, here's my fuckery for the day. And this
is something I want you to think about because I
think it has huge intended consequences, not unintended. So Elon
mus said he was spending the weekend working on Grock.
He has tweeted this and Grock three is so based
and then laughing emojis and basically it is what is
(45:02):
your opinion on the information. The information is a website.
The information, like most legacy media, is garbage. It's part
of the old Guard, filtered, biased and often serving the
interests of its funders or its editors rather than giving
you the on varnished truth. Let us open the door
to this AI. The whole idea here is that eventually
AI will you know, you will be asking questions to
(45:26):
your phone, and AI will be answering them, and that
will be on a broader scale. That will be everything.
So your computer will be asking another computer a question,
and AI will be the intelligence behind it. If this
intelligence believes that everything that is left leaning or even
just normal is profoundly left leaning, and everything that is
(45:47):
far right is actually accurate, imagine what happens next.
Speaker 4 (45:52):
Oh, I can easily imagine it. And it is horrifying,
and it is terrifying. And sell your fucking toughs. Don't
pay for Twitter. I mean, look, Elon Musk is the
richest man in the world and we all know it.
But he is the richest man in the world because
the stock price of one company, Tesla Motor Cars, is
wildly disproportionate to its actual value. That is what sustains Twitter,
(46:16):
which has been losing money handover fists since he overpaid
by a factor of ten for it. All of this stuff, guys,
all of this You have to approach anything with AI
very judiciously and very carefully. I do think he is
trying to set up an easy to use, free AI
that will feed people based talking points and all right
talking points because that's useful to him.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
Right, and also to change the narrative to make everything
all right, to make all right normal. I mean, this
is the goal here, and that's why they're going to
war with Wikipedia. That's because the goal here is to
shift the entire culture to a more apartheid South Africa state.
Speaker 4 (46:56):
Well, look at this is kind of information apartheid. They're
looking to buy the people that they want to keep
in their orbit into an information ecosystem that is only
feeding them the same sort of thing in a primitive
way that Rush Limbaugh fed his talk radio audience, that
Rupert Murdoch fed the Fox TV audience, that Bright Bart
(47:17):
and Gateway Pundit and Alex Jones and the rest of
this vomitous slurry of right wing agit prop dipshits. It's
the natural successor to that stuff and it's grotesque, but
it's here. Rick Wilson, my jog fast as always a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (47:35):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best
minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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