September 23, 2024 • 54 mins
Fast Politics unveils its new four-episode-a-week format! We have an excerpt from Molly and Rick Wilson’s Politics As Unusual live performance in Milwaukee, WI, at The Vivarium. The New York Times' Susanne Craig details her new book Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father's Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
And jd Vance's team was told by Springfield's mayor before
the debate that the allegations of dog eating were false,
and of course they still went with it.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
We have such a great show for you today.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
We're going to put you an excerpt of Politics as
Unusual's amazing show in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the Bavarium this weekend,
where Rick and Molly really have some fun. Then we'll
talk to the New York Times Suzanne Craig about her
new book Lucky Loser, how Donald Trump squadroned his father's
fortune have built the illusion of success. But first we
have a big announce from Molly and I Molly chuck Fest.
(00:42):
We have a big announcement to make to the listeners.
Don't we sound so stuffy?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Sorry, poor sick Jesse. We are in Chicago doing our
live tour, but we come to you with huge, humongous, enormous,
serious Fast Politics news. Are you ready?
Speaker 3 (01:03):
I think they're ready?
Speaker 1 (01:04):
You ready? Great news from now on Fast Politics. Because
you loved us at three times a week, You're gonna
love us.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
At four.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
We are being picked up for another season and we
are gonna bring you four one, two, three, four episodes
a week Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. You'll notice that
we have avoided the dreaded Friday drop day when every
other podcast in the world drops, but you will have
(01:34):
us on Saturdays.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
We've been told by the listeners that there's approximately nine
hundred podcasts to listen to every Friday.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
On Friday, so we will not be on Friday, but
on Saturday, when there are as I, as a podcast listener,
knows no podcast, you will have a fourth episode of
Fast Politics Podcast which you can listen to what you
do your errands on Saturday or when you drive home
from your weekend away in the cats on Sunday. Oddly specific,
(02:04):
I think a bit oddly specific the cat skills.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
But Bali, we have another thing that we're going to announce,
which is that you and I at the top of
each show are going to go over some news before
we get into the guests.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yes, so, Bali, wait, we have a format change. So
when I get very very annoying, Jesse playcates me by
letting me change the format. We've actually never changed the
format of the show. In ten million years, in ten
billion episodes, we have never changed the format. So now
we will change the format. I am a person who
(02:37):
wants as much information as possible, which is why when
I listen to podcasts. I don't recommend this myself, but
when I listen to podcasts, I tend to listen to
them at two X, Jesse is shaking his head in
a horror two baby two. But don't listen to me
on two because you don't want to miss a minute
or to one point five is fine, maybe one point
(02:57):
seven anyway. So the point is we now have a
new format, which is at the beginning of the show,
we're going to talk about the headlines, then we're going
to give you the great interviews you love, and then
we're going to end with a little moment of fuckery.
So it's going to be more news, more compact, more information,
(03:18):
and more opportunities for hilarity to ensue.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
So maally, in that case, there was a massive Mike
Schmidt article at the Times saying that Trump was using
this justice system for a little bit of fuckery against
his oabies. What'd you see here?
Speaker 1 (03:36):
So it's pretty interesting story from Mike Schmidt in the
New York Times, very very Fulsome reported piece all about
the ways in which Trump was able to bully his
Justice Department into investigating his enemies, and sometimes this was
slowed by the grown ups in the room. Ultimately it
ended up being somewhat slowed by the grown ups in
(03:58):
the room. But that was his first term when he
wasn't prepared. He didn't have a Project twenty twenty five
like plan for what he was going to do. Now
you have Trump with a group that he's going to
go in with that are really there are no grown
ups in the room anymore, unless you consider Santa Monica Goebbels,
(04:19):
Steven Miller to be a grown up in the room.
I personally do not. So you could see this sort
of Mike Schmid piece, I think showed a window of
what a second Trump administration would look like. And it's
filled with irs audits for anyone who dare come at him.
It's filled with, you know, the kind of legal stuff
(04:42):
that we saw in this country during the McCarthy era
when my grandfather was jailed in front of the House
on an American activities. So the American government has done
this to citizens before, we've seen it, just like we've
seen rights be taken away, like we saw that during
Jim Crow and then we've seen that again in this country.
(05:03):
But this in itself is pretty is pretty dark, and
we really see the stakes. What's great about this piece
in The Times is it really shows us the stakes
of the election. We talk a lot about how really
good election coverage explains the stakes and not the odds. Right,
they don't do it as a horse race, but instead
(05:23):
they do it as a real you know what it
will mean for us, and so this article is really
important in that and you should definitely read it. Very interesting.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
So and I thought, thought, what was interesting is it's
this week we got the leaked speech of trumb talking
about how Heritage would be planning how to staff his
next urb. This is exactly the reaction to that. They
were up to his standards of going after people this
first turb and they're trying to fix that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Well, also, we you know, we did do this. We
did this project twenty twenty five documentary on YouTube. You
want to check it out. It continues to live on
and what.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
It's just crossed one point five million views as a series.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Right, and what you see when you watch it, and
what you see even when you just peek around the
Heritage website, which they somehow continue to leave up despite
the fact that it Project twenty ray five has like
a five percent approval rating or something akin to that.
Is that this was actually a project really to get
staffers who shared an ideological view with Donald Trump, and
(06:30):
that was ultimately the goal. So when you look around there,
you can see there's actual recruiting packets, there's recruit you know,
there's a place to sort of enter your information. So
this really was you know that we talk about there
were pillars to this plan, and one of the pillars
was staffing, and then the other pillar was firing everyone
who worked in the federal government who was a nonpartisan
(06:53):
government employee and really making the entire federal government arms
of the Trump campaign, which is something that if you
think about it, like your weather will be trumpified, every
aspect of federal service will be trumpified, you will And
it's both, I mean, disturbing, but it's also just so
(07:16):
beyond the pale, So we definitely need to talk about that.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
So also good news, it hopes that none of this
will matter. Seems KABBLA is pretty popular. What do you
seek here?
Speaker 1 (07:27):
So just we got the August fundraising numbers because it's September.
It's September. Now, Jesse's really sick. If he gets me sick,
I'm gonna kill him. We got the August fundraising numbers
and they show that Harris raised about four times as
much money as Trump. Now, remember the Trump is supported
by dark money groups. You know you may if you
(07:48):
live in in certain areas, you're going to be getting
mailers that are from dark money groups, like one, there's
one that Elon Musk is backing America Pack American Pack
America BacT. But she wears four times as much, she's
spending three She spent three times more money in August,
and she still has one hundred million more in the bank.
So that's good. Look, money doesn't win this campaign. What
(08:12):
wins this campaign is people getting out there and voting
and getting their friends and family to vote.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
So, since this is the third Pennsylvania or Wisconsin.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, we are looking at
you to save American democracy. Because it turns out all
those fucking guys in the Federal government. You know, the
people in the DOJ did not save American democracy. Interesting
fact about Donald Trump, Jesse, you want to know an interesting.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Fact of much?
Speaker 2 (08:42):
I mean, in all honesty, I'd love to never hear
another one, but I'm gonna ask you anyway.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Toby, since this man has been running for president from
nearly a decade, that all of all the presidents since FDR,
guess which one has spent the shortest number of hours
each day on the job? Can you, guys?
Speaker 2 (09:00):
I could never ever guess that it's the guy that
golfs every day at DIGGD.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Why that's right, my man. He golfs, he watches television,
he tweets, but executive time, he spends a lot of
time executiving.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Throwing ketchup at the walls while watching Fox.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
It's right, speaking of throwing ketchup at the wall, you
know who wants to throw Fox News is. Problems with
lying about the twenty twenty election are not over, Nor
are the news station that makes Fox News look like PBS.
Can you guess which one it is?
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Is it right Side Broadcasting? Is it America's Voice?
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Isn't news Newsmax? It's got so much news it's called Newsmax,
but it really has no news. Smart Mattock Suit says
that Newsmax provide a platform for its host, Donald Trump
and the former president's attorneys and allies to falsely claim
that the company software was manipulated to claim the election
for Present and Biden. Smartmatic is suing them for a
lot of money. They really would like to make Newsmax.
(10:06):
They are, you know, the Smartmatic Max, and they're also
suing Fox. I think they're not going to settle. I
think it's going to be really really bad for Fox,
in which I say good.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
So the thing is is, if it's really bad for them, though,
do we see anything more aside for just their board
holders not getting as many rdigs.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Making less money?
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Yet?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Possibly, look the Fox family. You'll remember the Murdoch family
is right now in court fighting over the future of
Fox and the New York Post and all of the
sort of Murdoch media empires. So I see there's a
possible world where this ends up being bad for the Murdochs,
(10:51):
the bad Murdox Lachlan, there are some good Murdochs who
are not in fact worth remembering that the good Murdoch
indoors not Lachlan and not Elizabeth but James endorsed Vice
President Harris.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
I saw that.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
We have even more tour dates for you. Did you
know the Lincoln projects, Rick Willson of Fast Politics MALEI
jug Fast are heading out on tour to bring you
a night of laughs for our dark political landscape. Join
us on August twenty sixth at San Francisco at the
Swedish American Hall, or in la on August twenty seventh
at the Region Theater. Then we're headed to the Midwest.
We'll be at the Vivarium in Milwaukee on the twenty
(11:34):
first of September, and on the twenty second we'll be
in Chicago at City Winery. Then we're going to hit
the East coast. On September thirtieth, We'll be in Boston
at Arts at the Armory. On the first of October,
we'll be Infilliate City Winery, and then DC on the
second at the Miracle Theater. And today we just announced
that we'll be in New York on the fourteenth of
October at City Winery. If you need to laugh as
we get through this election, and hopefully never hear from
(11:57):
a guy who lives in a golf club again. We
got you join us in our surprise guests to help
you laugh instead of cry your way through this election
season and give you the inside analysis of what's really
going on right now. Buy your tickets now by heading
to Politics as Unusual dot bio. That's Politics as Unusual
dot bio.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Rick Wilson is the founder of the Lincoln Project and
the host of the Enemy's List.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Our first topic.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Is gift to the Democratic Party.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Mister sixteen Electoral College votes.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
He is the Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
A dedicated pornography officionado. He likes to call himself the
black Nazi.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Yeah, no, the black hill marks black him.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to be offensive by
calling him just a Knazen. He's elevated it right up
to the dail.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Yeah. Mark Robinson, you may know him from Naked Africa
dot com.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Nude Africa, Momie, there's a difference. Naked Africa it's pornography.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Nud Africa is art, Yes, neud Africa dot com. So
I think the question here is when you nominate when
your only qualification for a Republican elected is fealty to
Donald Trump. Yeah, this is what you get right, this is.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
The inevitable end state of a process.
Speaker 5 (13:24):
Look, when Trump was elected in sixteen, there was this
period of time where Republicans, even in the House, they
would I still talk to a lot of them.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Back then they would be like, well, I'm gonna find
my own way. I'll be nice to in, but I
won't kiss his ass.
Speaker 5 (13:39):
And by the end of the twenty twenty cycle, they
were all there like an industrial vacuum cleaner, like limpets
attack us guy, And it became the one qualifying factor
in every primary. It wasn't could the person get elected.
It wasn't could the person raise the money. It wasn't
could the person do the work. It wasn't whether or
(13:59):
not they were they were smart or not criminals, or
or if they could survive even the most rudimentary Google.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Search, not to mention a research vetting. And so Mark Robinson, guys,
none of this was a secret in North Carolina. Yeah,
none of this was a secret.
Speaker 5 (14:20):
All this crap came out when he was running for
lieutenant governor.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
It was everybody was talking about.
Speaker 5 (14:26):
It, and they all shut up because Donald Trump liked
the guy. They were like, well, maybe nobody will notice
he's got a long history of a crippling pornography addiction,
and then he ripped off the Girl Scouts for three
thousand dollars worth of cookies.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
I mean, look, the porn thing is is just porn,
dirty dirty cookies.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Fit Jesse. You're supposed to stop him from doing that. Now,
I'm just kidding. There is no We all know there
is no stopping that's right, yes, But let Rick Wilson
be Rick Wilson.
Speaker 5 (15:08):
You know, I think this philosophical position is management theory
really does work.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Just let me be, Let me do it, Let me
do my thing. What's gonna go wrong? What could go on?
We already got hit her into.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
The conversation in the first possibly go wrong? North Carolina
does have a history of scandal politicians in North Carolina.
Speaker 5 (15:31):
So two years ago, uh, guy running for governor named Cunningham,
great candidate squared away guy, it was revealed he was
having Sennon I'm sorry, revealed he was having an affair.
The text messages from the affair were so scandalous, and
(15:54):
they were things like I can't wait to kiss you,
I can't wait to kiss you back.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
You, I love you more?
Speaker 5 (16:02):
Okay, Pooky instead of instead of Mark Mark Robinson saying,
I don't even.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Know what he's going to say now, but I said,
don't mostly prepare myself that he's going to say something
really bad. Okay, go saying.
Speaker 5 (16:20):
It can in the chat room of a porn site, you.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Know, notoriously privacy secure, saying.
Speaker 5 (16:32):
That he thought slavery was a good idea and he
would own slaves if he had.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
The opportunity to, and of course.
Speaker 5 (16:39):
Talking about his wife's sister having sex with her and
referring to her dookie.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Shoot. And so at that point you're just like, all right,
we're gonna.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Show.
Speaker 5 (16:56):
But in the in the big picture, this is a
guy who his inadequacies as a candidate. Yeah, we're unbelievably clear.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Ahead of time, his campaign was already twelve points behind.
Speaker 5 (17:12):
Yes, in this in North Carolina, and you know the
top of the ticket in every state is the presidential race,
where it was a tie ball game and now it's
starting to slip.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Why because Mark Robinson.
Speaker 5 (17:26):
Is a gigantic boat anchor around Donald Trump's campaign.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Yeah, which I love to see it.
Speaker 5 (17:32):
I am, I am really okay, I more Mark Robinson's
in the future. I really encourage them to stay pure
to Trump pick guys like Mark, who really do.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
He's the Doctor Oz of North Carolina.
Speaker 5 (17:47):
He's kind of the Doctor Oz of Hannibal Lecters of
North Carolina.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Yes, the Doctor Oz and Hannibal Lecters of North Carolina.
And and he's yeah, I think it's I think it's
honestly a good thing.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
But again, it does go back to the fact that
the party that I represented for thirty five years of
my career.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Is not a party anymore.
Speaker 5 (18:09):
It is this cult where nothing else, nothing else matters
except are they loyal to Trump?
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Do they love Trump? Do they kiss Trump's ass in public?
Speaker 5 (18:18):
Are they willing to do and say anything to make
Trump happy? You know what the upside of that is,
Wilson's law always applies. In the end, everything Trump touches dies.
These people that do this and run and get and
get get just wrecked.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
It's because there are low quality candidates.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Yeah, Look Carrie.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Lake in Arizona, he's running again.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
She's running again.
Speaker 5 (18:47):
And how she has the time to run for office
while serving as governor, it just it's a mystery to me.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
But you know, she's going to get wrecked. Yeah, she's
gonna get hurt.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Her she'll Walker of Mark just check in. The cash
grab for the Trump family goes on.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
I want to show of hands today.
Speaker 5 (19:16):
If I say the words trumpy trout, does anyone know
what I'm talking about?
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Oh? All right, see we have okay, explain what trump
Trout is.
Speaker 5 (19:26):
Once upon a time in the nineteen nineties, there was
a creation that came from some fiendish mind called big
Mouth Billy Bass. Oh yeah, and big Mouth Billy Bass
sang the song take Me to the River, famous by
the Talking Heads, of course, but prior to that it
was Jesse probably has a better musical knowledge of who
(19:49):
wrote and produced it.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Initially, I actually don't know this is it? Okay, there
you go.
Speaker 5 (19:59):
But now there's a product called Trumpy Trout. It is
an animated fish mathon plaque on the wall that speaks
in Donald Trump's voice. Now, first off, this struck me
as like the greatest pitch for an indie horror film.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Ever, great crowd.
Speaker 5 (20:33):
But thinking of a fish yelling at you from across
the house in Trump's voice, It's just like it is
nightmare fuel of the first order.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
But I want to fish. I want a trumpy fish
that tells me I'm a bad jew That's.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
What I if I'm not re elected, is the fault
of the Jews.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Now, I don't know if you guys heard that before,
but it was better. As they say, the original.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Germany not great.
Speaker 5 (21:04):
But look they're selling Trump bitcoin, bitcoin, Trump NFT.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Cards, Trump silver dollars, silver dollars.
Speaker 5 (21:15):
From sneakers, those TAMU knockoff Trump's gold.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Sneakers, Trump NFTs.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Yeah, they also have another sneaker to their two sneakers
you sell.
Speaker 5 (21:24):
There's the gold one from the Teamy ones and the
Bitcoin sneakers, which, as you know, sneakers have a major
role in bitcoin.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
And then there's Milania. I feel like we should do
a whole segment on Milania.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Now.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
I have watched the Mulania video, her like trailer for
the book so many times. I watched it before. I've
watched it on television trying to make heads of tails
of it. And she wants to honor her beautiful body,
and she does not know why the mainstream media is
(22:01):
shaming her. The mainstream media, you know.
Speaker 5 (22:06):
Not that not that I noticed in the actual shaming.
I was more interested in the other chapters in the book,
vas Poison, not hirking.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Prevent tracking them. Cell phone discount shovel from Amazon.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
I think those are her Google service. Yes, no, Milania
has a book. The book ranges in price because this
is how much books cost, from two hundred and fifty dollars. Okay,
I've written some books, none of them, and you've written
some books and none of them have cost two hundred
(22:45):
and fifty dollars.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Listen, you're just there better be something in that book.
Speaker 5 (22:54):
That shocks the census for two hundred and fifty dollars.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
So they go from two hundred and fifty to seventy
five for an autographed and forty just for this straight
book with no bells and whistles. Right again, we can't
is there a foldout?
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Right?
Speaker 1 (23:10):
We can't speak to the content of the book because
no one can afford to buy it. But it's you know,
but it is Melania getting it.
Speaker 5 (23:18):
It does the already of Milania complaining about people shaming
her and not remembering she's married to Donald Trump.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
If you want shame, yeah, But.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
I also think that it does feel like a last
minute cash grab because the kids are doing like bitcoin schemes.
Speaker 5 (23:35):
You know, they've got Baron Trump involved in a bitcoin scheme, right,
And I'm just thinking, oh, yes, you know, one should
turn to Baron Trump for financial financial products and services.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
But you know, it reminded me there was a cult
in Japan called Omshin.
Speaker 5 (23:53):
Wikio and they did this like they poisoned the Tokyo subway. Crazy, right,
But the leader of the colt for years funded the
cult by selling things like his dirty bathwater and he
sold it under the name Miracle Pond.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
And people find I had healing properties.
Speaker 5 (24:10):
He sold his dirty t shirts, his dirty towels, clippings
of his hair and fingernails. And I think we're getting
toward Don Chinrikio. Now he's gonna be selling like his
used depends. Soon he's gonna be He's already cut.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Up his suits and selling them.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
It's like.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
It's like the guy the guy will be selling Don
Junior has two kidneys. He only needs one.
Speaker 5 (24:37):
You can have this commemorative kidney to remember the Trump era.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
But I do think it is it. I mean the
fundamental thing which we never talk about. And I feel
like a lot of times it'll be on a panel
talking with smart people on television and I want to
fake them and be like the man is running to
stay out of jail. Correct, can't we take anything he
says serious? Like he's running to pay lawyers.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
Yes, Look, the Trump campaign in the last since twenty
twenty has raised about six hundred and fifty million dollars. Now,
they skim off I'm not joking here. They skim off
about forty percent of that for the family. And they're
various companies.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
And people make crazy salaries like Don's girlfriend makes his salary.
Eric's wife makes a salary that.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Fund of them.
Speaker 5 (25:27):
The most conservative calculation on legal fees alone is one
hundred and fifty eight million dollars. That's a conservative estimate. Now, look,
if you're a guy with that much criminal overhang, you need,
you need that much money. I mean, I'm involved in
one lawsuit. Mike Flynn is suing me because I was
(25:49):
mean to him on Twitter.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
But it don't but Mike Flinn, it turns out that
guy's very persistent.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
He's persistent.
Speaker 5 (25:57):
Yeah, it has been a it has been a sub
offtimately fun year of legal proceedings.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
I can tell you how much lawyers cost. Trump is.
Trump is spending every penny he can spend.
Speaker 5 (26:10):
To stay out of prison because he does understand that
at some point when the idea of the fantasy that
Donald Trump is immune from.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Pros of a plan, the concept from prosecution.
Speaker 5 (26:24):
The concept of the of the idea of a plan,
and and things start closing in on him, there will
be people who say to President Harris, They'll say.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
We need you guys. By the way, no pressure, but
your state matter.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
You guys are kind of the center of the universe.
Let's get on here.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Okay, yes, yes, tell your friends. We need you guys,
But you guys can some postcards, some mailers.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Chats and messages.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
I'm sorry, but for the next fifty forty seven days,
I think forty six. Yeah, you guys are like the
vivips man.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
I haven't slept for nine years. I'm just so excited
to just.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Be glad you're not in Pennsylvania because those guys are
going through some stuff. Yeah, everyone in the world is
going to Pennsylvania every day until the election. Except Trump.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
Well, yeah, you know, I just I think Trump has
so told you what this is about. Again. He's trying
to stay out of jail. I've been involved in a
lot of.
Speaker 5 (27:41):
Presidential work over the years, a lot, you know what,
No Canada, I've ever dealt with, has ever done.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
A single time in a real race, gone golfing. He
golf's three days a week. This guy has checked out.
He's gone by by already.
Speaker 5 (27:56):
There's nothing up there anymore except like various thirty year
old beefs and weird paranoid fantasies and this. And it's
like a it's like a mad Libs. I remember mad
Libs when you were a kid.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
Yeah, it's like he just comes out and it's like
China rights.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
My ignorance, poisoning the blood of our country.
Speaker 5 (28:19):
By the way, I think we should all just take
a moment and a moment of respect for the cat
that was the center of the entire bullshit Haitian story. Yeah,
it was living in the basement, Sassy Baby, Sassy the cat.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
I have to tell you before we came out here.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
I'm on the I'm on my I'm on signal, I'm
on the phone with my my staff. The Lincoln Project
and the cat jokes, the cat jokes night are hot
and heavy, and there may be a cat parody account.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
I'm on Twitter now. I don't know.
Speaker 5 (28:49):
But as Molly said, she goes, it's really kind of
scary when they're calling you to make sure something isn't
going too far.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
That's what I did. They were like, is that okay,
mister Wilson. And I'm like, you're asking him. No, He's
going to tell you it's too much.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
You know, my notorious sense of restraint.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
That's right known for that. But I do think Look,
it is this weird moment and and a lot of
Republicans are checked out or Trump is checked out. You
know who's not checked out? Lindsey Graham. Where did Lindsey
Graham go?
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Right, Lindsey Graham?
Speaker 5 (29:35):
Who have there was such a scenario from a happier life.
But instead he decided that.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
The North Korean propagandist would.
Speaker 5 (29:45):
Be yes, that he was going to become, you know,
Donald Trump's biggest fanboy and shill.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
And so this week he's.
Speaker 5 (29:53):
Out in Nebraska trying to convince the state. And this
should tell you how desperate the Trump people are. Yeah, okay,
he's out there trying to convince the state Senate and
the governor to remove the system of allocation in Nebraska
from the congressional district system and making it a.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
Winner fotball system.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Yeah, one electoral vote vote.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
We've got one state senator out there, I think his
name is McConnell McDonald, McDonald, one.
Speaker 5 (30:25):
State center out there, who could probably use a couple
of nice emails saying you're doing the right thing, brother, Yeah,
because I.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Don't break up with all the death threats.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
I will tell you he's getting.
Speaker 5 (30:34):
He's getting a tidal wave of death threats right now.
That's what these people do. And we we live through it,
both of us, all the time.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
You know.
Speaker 5 (30:43):
And the good the good part about it is that
ninety nine point of them are meal Team six gravy
seals sitting behind.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Their keyboards somewhere. I will I will destroy you, cock.
But but you know, you always have to watch out
for the one percent asshole.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Yeah, and sometimes they show up by your house.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
They show up out my house from time to time.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
They've even shown up, I mean yeah, although although I.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Have I have. There is a summon out front yea
no trespassing private property.
Speaker 5 (31:13):
And there's one close to the door that says, this
is a reminder Florida as a standard ground state.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Good for you, but these enter down.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Harris has a gun.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
Yeah, do what?
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Does everybody have a gun but me?
Speaker 3 (31:28):
That was what I was like I have offered you
so many guns. Oh no, okay, can you imagine Molly?
Speaker 5 (31:36):
Can you imagine Molly strapped?
Speaker 1 (31:41):
You can't have guns in New York City. That's supposed
to well, Donald Trump has except everyone else.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Donald Trump had a gun in New York City. But
he can't need more. You know why, because he's a fellow.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Are you concerned about Project twenty twenty five and how
awful Trump's second term could be, Well so are we,
which is why we teamed up with iHeart to make
a limited series with the experts on what a disaster
Project twenty twenty five would be for America's future. Right now,
we have just released the final episode of this five
(32:15):
episode series. They're all available by looking up Molly Jong
Fast Project twenty twenty five on YouTube, and if you
are more of a podcast person and not say a YouTuber,
you can hit play and put your phone in the
lock screen and it will play back just like the podcast.
All five episodes are online now. We need to educate
(32:36):
Americans on what Trump's second term would or could due
to this country, So please watch it and spread the word.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Souzaid Craig is a journalist of the New York Times
and the author of Lucky Loser, How Donald Trump Squad
or does Father's fortune have built the illusion of success?
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Welcome to Fast Politics, Uzann Craig, Thanks for this is exciting.
I'm very excited about this book. But also we are friends,
so in real life we are. It's especially great to
have somebody on the podcast where you really like them
and you're just delighted to get to talk to them.
(33:17):
So that is I you know, sometimes I say it
because like I feel like it's a conflict, but I'm
saying it here because it's like I feel like it's
just a delight.
Speaker 6 (33:25):
Well, I want to say, you've been through some of
this book journey with me and I've been talking about it,
and yeah, I saw each other so much during the
Trump criminal trial. You know, we were on air a lot,
and you know, we've been through a lot, and you know,
I people covered Trump usually get to know people better
during one of his trials. So here we are. But
it's I'm really glad we've become friends.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
So yeah, oh, me too. And the book, it is
so beautiful and it's so exciting and it's called Lucky Loser.
How Donald trump'squandered his family's fortune and created the illusion
of success. I do want to say one of the
moments of the last two weeks that it really has
spoke to me is when Vice President Harris said to
(34:07):
Donald Trump, you inherited all this money? Were you like? Oh? Wow?
Speaker 6 (34:15):
You know what's interesting is that story keeps coming up.
We faced it a lot in twenty sixteen because he
didn't have a record of being President Ryan and a
lot of people were asking him about his businesses, and
he would keep talking about how he got a small
loan from his father, that his father was this small
time builder out in the outer boroughs of New York.
(34:37):
I sort of thought, in some ways we'd gotten beyond it.
But it is something that gets under his skin, and
that's why she brought it up. And again he just
doubles down on this idea that he did it all himself,
and he didn't. But he won't let it go. And
it's almost like he has come to believe that he
didn't inherit hundreds of millions of dollars from his father.
(34:59):
It's one of those things. It just gets under his skin.
And she has his number, and she asked him and again.
He told the lie.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Here's a really interesting thing that I'm hoping you could
talk to us about. This is sort of before the book.
You are the person who got a little bit of
the tax returns.
Speaker 6 (35:17):
Right right, So this is kind of a real.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
This is an amazing, like cinematic moment.
Speaker 6 (35:22):
It's a journle with Odyssey, and I love telling it
because I love reporting so much. And it was okay,
good this moment where So I was covering Governor Cuomo
in Albany for a few years and then I get
set down to City Hall to be the bureau chief.
Down at City Hall, build A. Blasio is the mayor.
I was there three weeks. I get a call from
the Metro editor. He says, Sue, He says, can you
(35:43):
just take a break for a couple months. We want
to just we want to do kind of one big
story on what Donald Trump owns or doesn't own in
New York. I worked on it with a colleague, and
I was promised, you know, Donald Trump's probably going to
be out of the race, you know, in six months
or so. So this is really short term assignment. So
I started covering him. I never went back to City Hall.
I didn't even go to get the stuff that was
(36:03):
on my desk, and we just started writing about him.
So did Russ Butner, my colleague who I wrote a
book with Everybody in two thousand and sixteen, was looking
for Donald Trump's tax returns and he had promised he
would release them, and then he didn't. And this was,
you know, I think a lot of reporters across the
city and in different newspapers around the country were looking
(36:24):
for them, including us, and we did not have much luck,
but we were still writing stories that we could find
about his finances. And then one day in September twenty sixteen,
several weeks before the twenty sixteen election, I'm just, you know,
wandering around the news room one afternoon. I was actually
closing a story involving Hillary Clinton, but I loved mail,
and I swung by my mailbox to see if there
(36:46):
was any mail. There was a manila envelope in my
mailbox and I it was addressed to me. I opened it,
and inside weird three pages of what looked like Donald
Trump's nineteen ninety five tax returns. And I looked at
it and I scanned it, and I saw very quickly
that his losses. If this document was true in nineteen
(37:06):
ninety five had almost a billion dollars in accumulated lots.
It's for just that year. So this guy who's run
on the idea of being a self made billionaire, is
you know, just hemorrhaging money if this is true. But
we worked round the clock on that to try and
confirm it, and we did. We talked to the accountant
who signed the document and he confirmed it was true.
(37:29):
So we went to press with that. That was like
a huge story at the time because it was the
first tax returns that had been obtained. Even though they
were older, that were we were able to get to publication.
So then fast forward, we start looking at this just
this idea that he came from nothing, like he ran
for president on the idea that he is a self
made man, he's a billionaire, and he sold this story
(37:51):
to the country and a lot of people believe it.
So we started to look at his father's wealth and
we spent actually eighteen months my colleagues rescipe her in
another colleague of mine, looking at what Fred Trump owned
and the story that came out of that. By the way,
Mary Trump, donald Trump's niece, no one knew at the time,
but she was working with us and she had given us.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
Yeah, that was what I was going to ask. She
was the one who'd slipped the pages to you right.
Speaker 6 (38:18):
Right right, and so not the first ones, but this
current story. So we were working, you know, working away
on Fred and you know, she had been in litigation
with the family in two thousand and we went out
to see her. She was very reluctant at first to
talk to me. I went to the door, I wrote
her letters just I was trying out to be a pastor.
But I was persistent, and she eventually agreed to see me,
and we talked and she said, I don't really know
(38:40):
what's in those boxes. And I knew there was something
in there because she'd gone to Discovery. She goes, I
don't know. It was like, you know, almost twenty years ago.
She goes, you know what, I'm going to go get them.
She was really upset about what was going on about
her uncle and is not a Republican and just was
sort of appalled by the whole situation. So she secretly
agreed to help us, and she went and got all
(39:02):
of the boxes that were hers, that were at her
lawyer's office and she gave them to us, and then
for months, it went on for almost a year, we
analyzed all of this information. And the information that we
got mainly had to do with bred Trump's empire because
this lawsuit she was involved in was in two thousand.
But we were able to piece together from that and
(39:22):
from other sources that we had that Donald Trump inherited
at the time and it's more now if we adjust
it for inflation, but it was more than four hundred
million dollars and that fortune. We were also able to
see he enhanced it through tax fraud. That was huge.
That story was, you know, really significant and really just
(39:43):
laid bare this this lie that he has been telling
that he's this self made guy. And we were super fortunate.
We want to Pullitzer Prize for that, which was amazing.
And then like in journalism, you know, we're now like
what do we do? And and you know, what's the
next story? And we got at that point, somebody else
reached out to us and they had more tax return
(40:03):
information and that tax information was from the nineteen covered
a lot of the nineteen eighties, and we started looking
at it. We were able to first of all, verify
that it was true, and we found things like the
year he released The Art of the DL this book
that he's the ultimate deal baker, that he lost tens
of millions of dollars that year. And we also were
(40:26):
able to because we were able to get a hold
of some old IRS databases with a lot of taxpayer
information in it, we were able to see that I
think it was at least in one year he lost
more than any other individual taxpayer in America. It was crazy.
And then, you know, we kept poking around for more stories,
and we had found another source who gave us twenty
(40:49):
some years of Donald Trump's personal and corporate tax return
information and that was just sort of the you know,
opened up the whole world for us where we were
able to seek year in and year out what all
of his businesses were making. And we found out, I
think it's what he made from The Apprentice, which was
important because he'd made so much money from this product,
(41:10):
placement on the shows, from licensing deals. But we also
saw that for the most part, all of his businesses
they lose money. And so you see he's inherited, you know,
this huge amount of money from his father. He made
almost the same amount from Mark Burnett. It was in
The Apprentice. It was sort of a second inheritance, and
then he lost it investing in all these kind of
(41:31):
crazy businesses that he's keeping. You know, they lose money.
He has to put more capital. And that's where we
came up with the title. You know, he's been very
fortunate in life. He was born into a rich family.
He met Mark Burnett turned him into a television star
where he made more money, but he's essentially a loser
when it comes to business.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
So interesting and also just fascinating how you sort of
get there now. I want you to talk to me.
We're going to pivot though we're very much in the
same whalehouse here to talk about the Stormy Daniels story
that's in the book.
Speaker 6 (42:08):
I had a feeling he might zero in and that
when it's a listing one. So you know, in Stormy Daniels,
Donald Trump has denied that he has had a fair
sexual relation with her. But it was the center of
a recent trial in Manhattan that he was found guilty
on thirty four felt any counts, and as part of
the trial we learned and actually it's in her book,
but she had a trip to Trump Tower in February
(42:32):
of two thousand and seven, and there's been discussion about
it in different places, and we just found this crazy
story that we hadn't heard before. I mean, it just
sort of goes to how frenatic his life was at
the time. He was working on The Apprentice, he was
just getting all these licensing deals in. He was in
the celebrity world. And we talked to this fellow named
Neil Hobday. He was working overseas for Donald Trump, mainly
(42:55):
putting together golf courses. He was working on the Scottish
golf course. That was one of his main charges, and
a lot of what he would have to do, the
interactions he would have with Donald would be in Scotland,
but he would come to Head Office occasionally to see
Donald Trump. So he's in New York in February of
two thousand and seven. He comes in to meet Donald
and Donald is in a meeting with a woman who
(43:16):
is very well endowed and blonde hair, and Neil's invited
into the meeting and there's a quick moment where Neil
meets this woman and then she leaves, and then Donald
Trump and Neil hobbed They are standing there and Donald's like,
you're not going to believe this, And he shows Neil
this deck of playing cards that this woman had given
(43:37):
Donald and it was a playing cards and on the
front there was various positions of the woman naked in
various sexual positions and Donald just was totally delighted on this.
And then he also was there. He was laughing with
Neil and said, oh, yeah, and this woman has pitched
me on a pornographic evangelical channel.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
Oh I'm smart.
Speaker 6 (43:56):
Neil is just like, this is nuts. And then you're
he realizes that the woman that he met was Stormy Daniels.
And then we've been in touch with Stormy Daniels and
she remember, yeah, and she remembers giving Donald Trump the
playing cards. And that's just one of many anecdotes in
the book that just capture We tried at each turn
to really capture just what Donald Trump's like life was
(44:20):
like at any given moment in the year, and that
one was just one that just really spoke to sort
of I think some of the craziness that was going
on in his life at the time.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
Wow, right, And also that she exists and that they
had met, and that all of his lying about it is.
I mean, did you have other stories like that where
they were so clearly not true? But somehow Trump has
refuted them again and again, even though you know you
have documentation of them in the book.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
No.
Speaker 6 (44:49):
You know, it's interesting he did not speak to us
for the book. We tried several times to engage the
Trump campaign, and also we tried to engage them for
the book excerpt that ran in the New York Times.
You know, when we have a book coming out, excerpt
sometimes run in different places. And he has declined to
engage us. You know, I haven't spoken to him personally,
so I can't speak for him on it, but I
would imagine he's not happy that we have a lot
(45:11):
of his financial information, but he has refused to even
pick up the phone and speak to us, or his
people haven't even responded to our questions.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
But he is suing you.
Speaker 6 (45:19):
Well, that's an interesting question. Let's break that down. He
sued us a few years ago, and he sued The
New York Times, myself, my colleague Russ Butner, and another
colleague of mine, who were involved in that twenty eighteen story.
In that suit, Mary Trump was also named, and he
went to court. He was very upset that Mary had
signed confidentiality agreement when when she came to the settlement
(45:44):
in two thousand and according to his lawyers, you know,
she had agreed not to give out any documents, and
of course she gave me all these documents. So we
went to court and we were in court with you know,
Mary's attorneys were there, and ultimately, you know, he was
accusing me of torture interference for you know, coursing Mary
to give me the documents. You know, she wanted to
(46:04):
give us the document She's been clear about that in
her book. But he came after all of us, and
then the judge threw us out of the case. Dal
Trump's case against Mary is still going forward, but we
were we were thrown out, and he was forced to
pay our legal fees can do about four hundred thousand dollars.
Then supperately on Sunday, I got a letter in my
(46:25):
inbox Sunday night from Donald Trump's lawyers and it was
addressed to the editor of The New York Times. Rus Butner,
my co author on Lucky Loser, and myself about the
excerpt that ran in the New York Times. And it
was a cease and desist letter. They were unhappy with
some things that were set in the article, and they're
sort of putting us on warning by sending that sort
(46:46):
of letter that they may sue right now, just against
the paper. I don't know if they've read the book
and what else they have planned, or if they even
and tend to sue. Donald Trump's pretty litigious, So I'd
never like to say where it's going to head. But
that's always serious stuff when it happens. You know, we
feel we stand by every word in the book and
every word that was in the excerpt, but you know,
you never know where things could go.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
Yeah, and I think it is the playbook right, This
is how he does it.
Speaker 6 (47:10):
Right, and he you know, and having you know, lawsuits
filed does you know, sometimes have a chilling effect. It
can just suck up time and energy. And you know, we,
you know, are just determined to continue our work and
sort of just set it aside. If it's going to happen,
it's going to happen. We can't control it. This work
is so important and I just want to say, like
the New York Times support of our work has been incredible.
(47:33):
We have been at this for almost a decade now,
and they supported us from the beginning. I mean, we
kept getting stories, but they did not waiver. They feel
that it's incredibly important that readers in America understand the
workings of the person who's in the oval office of
their finances, and they understand the pressures that they might
(47:55):
be under. And if we don't understand the finances, sometimes
decisions could be made that could benefit that individual, and
the American public will never know. And that New York
Times was early and understanding how important it is that
we have as much information as we can about the
finances of the people running for the highest office in
the land and the person then holding that office.
Speaker 1 (48:17):
Yeah, and I think it's really important as we're talking
about that people on the left and on the right
are often mad about editorial decisions. They're mad about sometimes
they're mad about the titles of pieces or you know,
a ross dose are op ed. But a lot of
(48:38):
the nuts and bolts of how we understand the world
come from these reporting, which is a completely separate animal
and has nothing to do with what happens on the
editorial page, and places like New York Times really do
provide this reporting that otherwise we would not have no right.
Speaker 6 (48:57):
And it's hard and it's expensive to dedicate people to
do it, and we try to get it right every day,
and I think we do. And I think that the times,
you know, in my small, little you know, my little
life where I'm doing this, I think it's been worth it.
It's important, and I think in this world, you know,
one of the questions is, well, is this book really
going to matter? Is your work at the times it's
really going to matter?
Speaker 3 (49:16):
You know?
Speaker 6 (49:16):
People, you know, we're sort of post back. And I
still think that the majority of Americans want facts. They do.
I think that sometimes the people that we hear from
are just the people with the megaphones and they make
the loudest noise so they're amplified. But I think when
you sit back, the vast majority of Americans do want
the facts. And Russ and I we wrote this book.
(49:38):
At the end, we were very careful about footnoting it
because we know people are going to want to note
now where the information comes. But twenty or fifty years
from now that they're going to be able to pick
up this book, a lot of the people won't be alive.
They won't be able to bear witness again. But we've
got the footnotes so that you can see where the
information came from. It's important, you know, It's I always
(49:58):
joke I'm a reporter. If you cut me, I probably
will bleed ink. And I just as this is, this
is my cause, this is you know, the you know
what runs through my veins.
Speaker 1 (50:07):
Yeah, it's a really good point. But I also just
wonder do you think that Donald Trump is making money
off running for president and that that is enough money
that could get him out of the sort of financial
peril that he has been in and out of.
Speaker 6 (50:22):
It's tough. You know, he's making money currently selling things
like sneakers and bibles, and that's not enough. Not only
when you think he's you know, he's shrinking his empire.
He sold the lease for the old Post Office hotel
in Washington. That hotel was losing money. He's facing just
crushing fines in New York on various fronts. Let's just
take the New York Attorney General's case of that is
(50:44):
upheld on appeal. He'll have to write a check for
you know, upwards of four hundred million dollars. I just
don't think that those sort of licensing deals are enough
to shore up you know, what he's facing it. We
talk a bit about that in the book, and I
just I just want to say, moll when people pick
up the book. There's been you know, different books written.
A lot of them have been about the White House.
Some of them have been before. But our book really
(51:05):
does try to step back and we tell a story
of one hundred years. It's a narrative, and we start
with Fred Trump, we go through his relationship with Donald
and all the way up to the White House, and
we tell a story and we build it with anecdotes.
It's just a different sort of book. I think of
it as kind of a wild ride. There's a lot
of crazy stuff in it, but we try to look
(51:26):
at Fred and Donald and sort of how Donald became
who he was, not just through his father, but also
that time in the seventies and the eighties when he
was rising through New York and nobody was questioning his
claims that he was a billionaire, and just how that happened,
because it also looks a little bit at America as well,
and how he was enabled in that time to get
(51:46):
to the point where he is today.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you. I hope
you'll come back.
Speaker 6 (51:51):
I will and thank you very much. It's great to
hear your voice again. And I'll see you soon.
Speaker 3 (51:57):
And a moment.
Speaker 2 (52:01):
Jesse Cannon, Molly Jung Fast, I'm going to read you
a truth from Donald Trump that you're going to be shocked.
Doesn't contain much, you got it.
Speaker 1 (52:10):
You gotta do air quotes around truth.
Speaker 2 (52:11):
Yes, well that that's a little hard and podcasting.
Speaker 3 (52:14):
AnyWho.
Speaker 2 (52:15):
Women are poorer than they were four years ago, are
less healthy than they were four years ago, are less
safe on the streets than they were four years ago,
are more depressed and unhappy than they were four years ago,
and are less optimistic that and confident in the future
than they were four years ago. Fix all that and fast.
Women will be happy, healthy, confident, and free. You will
no longer be thinking about abortion because it is now
(52:37):
where it always has to be. With the states and
a vote for the people. Powerful exceptions like those that
Ronald Reagan insisted on, rape, incest, and the life of
the mother. I will protect women at a level never
seen before. They will be healthy, hopeful, safe and secure.
Their lives will be happy, beautiful and great again.
Speaker 1 (52:56):
My favorite part about this post. I'm not even gonna
say truth because it's not anywhere near a truth. Is
that Donald Trump provided this in all caps with almost
no punctuation. So look, he clearly saw a focus group
that said, this fucking guy is losing women, but he's
(53:17):
not losing women by enough. That's all I can say.
Speaker 3 (53:20):
If you're a.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
Woman and you have any sense of, you know, wanting
to have any control over your body, you should not
vote for this fucking guy. Heart agree and he and
his hot takes about abortion, which, by the way, he
is the person who took that away from the and
(53:41):
from women in this country. His hot takes are our
moment of fuckery. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to hear the
best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos.
If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to
a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks
(54:03):
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.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
And jd Vance's team was told by Springfield's mayor before
the debate that the allegations of dog eating were false,
and of course they still went with it.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
We have such a great show for you today.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
We're going to put you an excerpt of Politics as
Unusual's amazing show in Milwaukee, Wisconsin at the Bavarium this weekend,
where Rick and Molly really have some fun. Then we'll
talk to the New York Times Suzanne Craig about her
new book Lucky Loser, how Donald Trump squadroned his father's
fortune have built the illusion of success. But first we
have a big announce from Molly and I Molly chuck Fest.
(00:42):
We have a big announcement to make to the listeners.
Don't we sound so stuffy?
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Sorry, poor sick Jesse. We are in Chicago doing our
live tour, but we come to you with huge, humongous, enormous,
serious Fast Politics news. Are you ready?
Speaker 3 (01:03):
I think they're ready?
Speaker 1 (01:04):
You ready? Great news from now on Fast Politics. Because
you loved us at three times a week, You're gonna
love us.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
At four.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
We are being picked up for another season and we
are gonna bring you four one, two, three, four episodes
a week Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. You'll notice that
we have avoided the dreaded Friday drop day when every
other podcast in the world drops, but you will have
(01:34):
us on Saturdays.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
We've been told by the listeners that there's approximately nine
hundred podcasts to listen to every Friday.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
On Friday, so we will not be on Friday, but
on Saturday, when there are as I, as a podcast listener,
knows no podcast, you will have a fourth episode of
Fast Politics Podcast which you can listen to what you
do your errands on Saturday or when you drive home
from your weekend away in the cats on Sunday. Oddly specific,
(02:04):
I think a bit oddly specific the cat skills.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
But Bali, we have another thing that we're going to announce,
which is that you and I at the top of
each show are going to go over some news before
we get into the guests.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Yes, so, Bali, wait, we have a format change. So
when I get very very annoying, Jesse playcates me by
letting me change the format. We've actually never changed the
format of the show. In ten million years, in ten
billion episodes, we have never changed the format. So now
we will change the format. I am a person who
(02:37):
wants as much information as possible, which is why when
I listen to podcasts. I don't recommend this myself, but
when I listen to podcasts, I tend to listen to
them at two X, Jesse is shaking his head in
a horror two baby two. But don't listen to me
on two because you don't want to miss a minute
or to one point five is fine, maybe one point
(02:57):
seven anyway. So the point is we now have a
new format, which is at the beginning of the show,
we're going to talk about the headlines, then we're going
to give you the great interviews you love, and then
we're going to end with a little moment of fuckery.
So it's going to be more news, more compact, more information,
(03:18):
and more opportunities for hilarity to ensue.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
So maally, in that case, there was a massive Mike
Schmidt article at the Times saying that Trump was using
this justice system for a little bit of fuckery against
his oabies. What'd you see here?
Speaker 1 (03:36):
So it's pretty interesting story from Mike Schmidt in the
New York Times, very very Fulsome reported piece all about
the ways in which Trump was able to bully his
Justice Department into investigating his enemies, and sometimes this was
slowed by the grown ups in the room. Ultimately it
ended up being somewhat slowed by the grown ups in
(03:58):
the room. But that was his first term when he
wasn't prepared. He didn't have a Project twenty twenty five
like plan for what he was going to do. Now
you have Trump with a group that he's going to
go in with that are really there are no grown
ups in the room anymore, unless you consider Santa Monica Goebbels,
(04:19):
Steven Miller to be a grown up in the room.
I personally do not. So you could see this sort
of Mike Schmid piece, I think showed a window of
what a second Trump administration would look like. And it's
filled with irs audits for anyone who dare come at him.
It's filled with, you know, the kind of legal stuff
(04:42):
that we saw in this country during the McCarthy era
when my grandfather was jailed in front of the House
on an American activities. So the American government has done
this to citizens before, we've seen it, just like we've
seen rights be taken away, like we saw that during
Jim Crow and then we've seen that again in this country.
(05:03):
But this in itself is pretty is pretty dark, and
we really see the stakes. What's great about this piece
in The Times is it really shows us the stakes
of the election. We talk a lot about how really
good election coverage explains the stakes and not the odds. Right,
they don't do it as a horse race, but instead
(05:23):
they do it as a real you know what it
will mean for us, and so this article is really
important in that and you should definitely read it. Very interesting.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
So and I thought, thought, what was interesting is it's
this week we got the leaked speech of trumb talking
about how Heritage would be planning how to staff his
next urb. This is exactly the reaction to that. They
were up to his standards of going after people this
first turb and they're trying to fix that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Well, also, we you know, we did do this. We
did this project twenty twenty five documentary on YouTube. You
want to check it out. It continues to live on
and what.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
It's just crossed one point five million views as a series.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Right, and what you see when you watch it, and
what you see even when you just peek around the
Heritage website, which they somehow continue to leave up despite
the fact that it Project twenty ray five has like
a five percent approval rating or something akin to that.
Is that this was actually a project really to get
staffers who shared an ideological view with Donald Trump, and
(06:30):
that was ultimately the goal. So when you look around there,
you can see there's actual recruiting packets, there's recruit you know,
there's a place to sort of enter your information. So
this really was you know that we talk about there
were pillars to this plan, and one of the pillars
was staffing, and then the other pillar was firing everyone
who worked in the federal government who was a nonpartisan
(06:53):
government employee and really making the entire federal government arms
of the Trump campaign, which is something that if you
think about it, like your weather will be trumpified, every
aspect of federal service will be trumpified, you will And
it's both, I mean, disturbing, but it's also just so
(07:16):
beyond the pale, So we definitely need to talk about that.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
So also good news, it hopes that none of this
will matter. Seems KABBLA is pretty popular. What do you
seek here?
Speaker 1 (07:27):
So just we got the August fundraising numbers because it's September.
It's September. Now, Jesse's really sick. If he gets me sick,
I'm gonna kill him. We got the August fundraising numbers
and they show that Harris raised about four times as
much money as Trump. Now, remember the Trump is supported
by dark money groups. You know you may if you
(07:48):
live in in certain areas, you're going to be getting
mailers that are from dark money groups, like one, there's
one that Elon Musk is backing America Pack American Pack
America BacT. But she wears four times as much, she's
spending three She spent three times more money in August,
and she still has one hundred million more in the bank.
So that's good. Look, money doesn't win this campaign. What
(08:12):
wins this campaign is people getting out there and voting
and getting their friends and family to vote.
Speaker 2 (08:17):
So, since this is the third Pennsylvania or Wisconsin.
Speaker 1 (08:20):
Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, we are looking at
you to save American democracy. Because it turns out all
those fucking guys in the Federal government. You know, the
people in the DOJ did not save American democracy. Interesting
fact about Donald Trump, Jesse, you want to know an interesting.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Fact of much?
Speaker 2 (08:42):
I mean, in all honesty, I'd love to never hear
another one, but I'm gonna ask you anyway.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Toby, since this man has been running for president from
nearly a decade, that all of all the presidents since FDR,
guess which one has spent the shortest number of hours
each day on the job? Can you, guys?
Speaker 2 (09:00):
I could never ever guess that it's the guy that
golfs every day at DIGGD.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Why that's right, my man. He golfs, he watches television,
he tweets, but executive time, he spends a lot of
time executiving.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Throwing ketchup at the walls while watching Fox.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
It's right, speaking of throwing ketchup at the wall, you
know who wants to throw Fox News is. Problems with
lying about the twenty twenty election are not over, Nor
are the news station that makes Fox News look like PBS.
Can you guess which one it is?
Speaker 2 (09:37):
Is it right Side Broadcasting? Is it America's Voice?
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Isn't news Newsmax? It's got so much news it's called Newsmax,
but it really has no news. Smart Mattock Suit says
that Newsmax provide a platform for its host, Donald Trump
and the former president's attorneys and allies to falsely claim
that the company software was manipulated to claim the election
for Present and Biden. Smartmatic is suing them for a
lot of money. They really would like to make Newsmax.
(10:06):
They are, you know, the Smartmatic Max, and they're also
suing Fox. I think they're not going to settle. I
think it's going to be really really bad for Fox,
in which I say good.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
So the thing is is, if it's really bad for them, though,
do we see anything more aside for just their board
holders not getting as many rdigs.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Making less money?
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Yet?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Possibly, look the Fox family. You'll remember the Murdoch family
is right now in court fighting over the future of
Fox and the New York Post and all of the
sort of Murdoch media empires. So I see there's a
possible world where this ends up being bad for the Murdochs,
(10:51):
the bad Murdox Lachlan, there are some good Murdochs who
are not in fact worth remembering that the good Murdoch
indoors not Lachlan and not Elizabeth but James endorsed Vice
President Harris.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
I saw that.
Speaker 4 (11:13):
We have even more tour dates for you. Did you
know the Lincoln projects, Rick Willson of Fast Politics MALEI
jug Fast are heading out on tour to bring you
a night of laughs for our dark political landscape. Join
us on August twenty sixth at San Francisco at the
Swedish American Hall, or in la on August twenty seventh
at the Region Theater. Then we're headed to the Midwest.
We'll be at the Vivarium in Milwaukee on the twenty
(11:34):
first of September, and on the twenty second we'll be
in Chicago at City Winery. Then we're going to hit
the East coast. On September thirtieth, We'll be in Boston
at Arts at the Armory. On the first of October,
we'll be Infilliate City Winery, and then DC on the
second at the Miracle Theater. And today we just announced
that we'll be in New York on the fourteenth of
October at City Winery. If you need to laugh as
we get through this election, and hopefully never hear from
(11:57):
a guy who lives in a golf club again. We
got you join us in our surprise guests to help
you laugh instead of cry your way through this election
season and give you the inside analysis of what's really
going on right now. Buy your tickets now by heading
to Politics as Unusual dot bio. That's Politics as Unusual
dot bio.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
Rick Wilson is the founder of the Lincoln Project and
the host of the Enemy's List.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Our first topic.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Is gift to the Democratic Party.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Mister sixteen Electoral College votes.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
He is the Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
A dedicated pornography officionado. He likes to call himself the
black Nazi.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Yeah, no, the black hill marks black him.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to be offensive by
calling him just a Knazen. He's elevated it right up
to the dail.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
Yeah. Mark Robinson, you may know him from Naked Africa
dot com.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Nude Africa, Momie, there's a difference. Naked Africa it's pornography.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Nud Africa is art, Yes, neud Africa dot com. So
I think the question here is when you nominate when
your only qualification for a Republican elected is fealty to
Donald Trump. Yeah, this is what you get right, this is.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
The inevitable end state of a process.
Speaker 5 (13:24):
Look, when Trump was elected in sixteen, there was this
period of time where Republicans, even in the House, they
would I still talk to a lot of them.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Back then they would be like, well, I'm gonna find
my own way. I'll be nice to in, but I
won't kiss his ass.
Speaker 5 (13:39):
And by the end of the twenty twenty cycle, they
were all there like an industrial vacuum cleaner, like limpets
attack us guy, And it became the one qualifying factor
in every primary. It wasn't could the person get elected.
It wasn't could the person raise the money. It wasn't
could the person do the work. It wasn't whether or
(13:59):
not they were they were smart or not criminals, or
or if they could survive even the most rudimentary Google.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
Search, not to mention a research vetting. And so Mark Robinson, guys,
none of this was a secret in North Carolina. Yeah,
none of this was a secret.
Speaker 5 (14:20):
All this crap came out when he was running for
lieutenant governor.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
It was everybody was talking about.
Speaker 5 (14:26):
It, and they all shut up because Donald Trump liked
the guy. They were like, well, maybe nobody will notice
he's got a long history of a crippling pornography addiction,
and then he ripped off the Girl Scouts for three
thousand dollars worth of cookies.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
I mean, look, the porn thing is is just porn,
dirty dirty cookies.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Fit Jesse. You're supposed to stop him from doing that. Now,
I'm just kidding. There is no We all know there
is no stopping that's right, yes, But let Rick Wilson
be Rick Wilson.
Speaker 5 (15:08):
You know, I think this philosophical position is management theory
really does work.
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Just let me be, Let me do it, Let me
do my thing. What's gonna go wrong? What could go on?
We already got hit her into.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
The conversation in the first possibly go wrong? North Carolina
does have a history of scandal politicians in North Carolina.
Speaker 5 (15:31):
So two years ago, uh, guy running for governor named Cunningham,
great candidate squared away guy, it was revealed he was
having Sennon I'm sorry, revealed he was having an affair.
The text messages from the affair were so scandalous, and
(15:54):
they were things like I can't wait to kiss you,
I can't wait to kiss you back.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
You, I love you more?
Speaker 5 (16:02):
Okay, Pooky instead of instead of Mark Mark Robinson saying,
I don't even.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Know what he's going to say now, but I said,
don't mostly prepare myself that he's going to say something
really bad. Okay, go saying.
Speaker 5 (16:20):
It can in the chat room of a porn site, you.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Know, notoriously privacy secure, saying.
Speaker 5 (16:32):
That he thought slavery was a good idea and he
would own slaves if he had.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
The opportunity to, and of course.
Speaker 5 (16:39):
Talking about his wife's sister having sex with her and
referring to her dookie.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Shoot. And so at that point you're just like, all right,
we're gonna.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
Show.
Speaker 5 (16:56):
But in the in the big picture, this is a
guy who his inadequacies as a candidate. Yeah, we're unbelievably clear.
Speaker 3 (17:06):
Ahead of time, his campaign was already twelve points behind.
Speaker 5 (17:12):
Yes, in this in North Carolina, and you know the
top of the ticket in every state is the presidential race,
where it was a tie ball game and now it's
starting to slip.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Why because Mark Robinson.
Speaker 5 (17:26):
Is a gigantic boat anchor around Donald Trump's campaign.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Yeah, which I love to see it.
Speaker 5 (17:32):
I am, I am really okay, I more Mark Robinson's
in the future. I really encourage them to stay pure
to Trump pick guys like Mark, who really do.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
He's the Doctor Oz of North Carolina.
Speaker 5 (17:47):
He's kind of the Doctor Oz of Hannibal Lecters of
North Carolina.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Yes, the Doctor Oz and Hannibal Lecters of North Carolina.
And and he's yeah, I think it's I think it's
honestly a good thing.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
But again, it does go back to the fact that
the party that I represented for thirty five years of
my career.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Is not a party anymore.
Speaker 5 (18:09):
It is this cult where nothing else, nothing else matters
except are they loyal to Trump?
Speaker 3 (18:16):
Do they love Trump? Do they kiss Trump's ass in public?
Speaker 5 (18:18):
Are they willing to do and say anything to make
Trump happy? You know what the upside of that is,
Wilson's law always applies. In the end, everything Trump touches dies.
These people that do this and run and get and
get get just wrecked.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
It's because there are low quality candidates.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
Yeah, Look Carrie.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Lake in Arizona, he's running again.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
She's running again.
Speaker 5 (18:47):
And how she has the time to run for office
while serving as governor, it just it's a mystery to me.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
But you know, she's going to get wrecked. Yeah, she's
gonna get hurt.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Her she'll Walker of Mark just check in. The cash
grab for the Trump family goes on.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
I want to show of hands today.
Speaker 5 (19:16):
If I say the words trumpy trout, does anyone know
what I'm talking about?
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Oh? All right, see we have okay, explain what trump
Trout is.
Speaker 5 (19:26):
Once upon a time in the nineteen nineties, there was
a creation that came from some fiendish mind called big
Mouth Billy Bass. Oh yeah, and big Mouth Billy Bass
sang the song take Me to the River, famous by
the Talking Heads, of course, but prior to that it
was Jesse probably has a better musical knowledge of who
(19:49):
wrote and produced it.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
Initially, I actually don't know this is it? Okay, there
you go.
Speaker 5 (19:59):
But now there's a product called Trumpy Trout. It is
an animated fish mathon plaque on the wall that speaks
in Donald Trump's voice. Now, first off, this struck me
as like the greatest pitch for an indie horror film.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Ever, great crowd.
Speaker 5 (20:33):
But thinking of a fish yelling at you from across
the house in Trump's voice, It's just like it is
nightmare fuel of the first order.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
But I want to fish. I want a trumpy fish
that tells me I'm a bad jew That's.
Speaker 5 (20:45):
What I if I'm not re elected, is the fault
of the Jews.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Now, I don't know if you guys heard that before,
but it was better. As they say, the original.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Germany not great.
Speaker 5 (21:04):
But look they're selling Trump bitcoin, bitcoin, Trump NFT.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Cards, Trump silver dollars, silver dollars.
Speaker 5 (21:15):
From sneakers, those TAMU knockoff Trump's gold.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
Sneakers, Trump NFTs.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Yeah, they also have another sneaker to their two sneakers
you sell.
Speaker 5 (21:24):
There's the gold one from the Teamy ones and the
Bitcoin sneakers, which, as you know, sneakers have a major
role in bitcoin.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
And then there's Milania. I feel like we should do
a whole segment on Milania.
Speaker 3 (21:39):
Now.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
I have watched the Mulania video, her like trailer for
the book so many times. I watched it before. I've
watched it on television trying to make heads of tails
of it. And she wants to honor her beautiful body,
and she does not know why the mainstream media is
(22:01):
shaming her. The mainstream media, you know.
Speaker 5 (22:06):
Not that not that I noticed in the actual shaming.
I was more interested in the other chapters in the book,
vas Poison, not hirking.
Speaker 3 (22:16):
Prevent tracking them. Cell phone discount shovel from Amazon.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
I think those are her Google service. Yes, no, Milania
has a book. The book ranges in price because this
is how much books cost, from two hundred and fifty dollars. Okay,
I've written some books, none of them, and you've written
some books and none of them have cost two hundred
(22:45):
and fifty dollars.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
Listen, you're just there better be something in that book.
Speaker 5 (22:54):
That shocks the census for two hundred and fifty dollars.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
So they go from two hundred and fifty to seventy
five for an autographed and forty just for this straight
book with no bells and whistles. Right again, we can't
is there a foldout?
Speaker 2 (23:10):
Right?
Speaker 1 (23:10):
We can't speak to the content of the book because
no one can afford to buy it. But it's you know,
but it is Melania getting it.
Speaker 5 (23:18):
It does the already of Milania complaining about people shaming
her and not remembering she's married to Donald Trump.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
If you want shame, yeah, But.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
I also think that it does feel like a last
minute cash grab because the kids are doing like bitcoin schemes.
Speaker 5 (23:35):
You know, they've got Baron Trump involved in a bitcoin scheme, right,
And I'm just thinking, oh, yes, you know, one should
turn to Baron Trump for financial financial products and services.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
But you know, it reminded me there was a cult
in Japan called Omshin.
Speaker 5 (23:53):
Wikio and they did this like they poisoned the Tokyo subway. Crazy, right,
But the leader of the colt for years funded the
cult by selling things like his dirty bathwater and he
sold it under the name Miracle Pond.
Speaker 3 (24:08):
And people find I had healing properties.
Speaker 5 (24:10):
He sold his dirty t shirts, his dirty towels, clippings
of his hair and fingernails. And I think we're getting
toward Don Chinrikio. Now he's gonna be selling like his
used depends. Soon he's gonna be He's already cut.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Up his suits and selling them.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
It's like.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
It's like the guy the guy will be selling Don
Junior has two kidneys. He only needs one.
Speaker 5 (24:37):
You can have this commemorative kidney to remember the Trump era.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
But I do think it is it. I mean the
fundamental thing which we never talk about. And I feel
like a lot of times it'll be on a panel
talking with smart people on television and I want to
fake them and be like the man is running to
stay out of jail. Correct, can't we take anything he
says serious? Like he's running to pay lawyers.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
Yes, Look, the Trump campaign in the last since twenty
twenty has raised about six hundred and fifty million dollars. Now,
they skim off I'm not joking here. They skim off
about forty percent of that for the family. And they're
various companies.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
And people make crazy salaries like Don's girlfriend makes his salary.
Eric's wife makes a salary that.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Fund of them.
Speaker 5 (25:27):
The most conservative calculation on legal fees alone is one
hundred and fifty eight million dollars. That's a conservative estimate. Now, look,
if you're a guy with that much criminal overhang, you need,
you need that much money. I mean, I'm involved in
one lawsuit. Mike Flynn is suing me because I was
(25:49):
mean to him on Twitter.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
But it don't but Mike Flinn, it turns out that
guy's very persistent.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
He's persistent.
Speaker 5 (25:57):
Yeah, it has been a it has been a sub
offtimately fun year of legal proceedings.
Speaker 3 (26:02):
I can tell you how much lawyers cost. Trump is.
Trump is spending every penny he can spend.
Speaker 5 (26:10):
To stay out of prison because he does understand that
at some point when the idea of the fantasy that
Donald Trump is immune from.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
Pros of a plan, the concept from prosecution.
Speaker 5 (26:24):
The concept of the of the idea of a plan,
and and things start closing in on him, there will
be people who say to President Harris, They'll say.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
We need you guys. By the way, no pressure, but
your state matter.
Speaker 3 (26:47):
You guys are kind of the center of the universe.
Let's get on here.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
Okay, yes, yes, tell your friends. We need you guys,
But you guys can some postcards, some mailers.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Chats and messages.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
I'm sorry, but for the next fifty forty seven days,
I think forty six. Yeah, you guys are like the
vivips man.
Speaker 3 (27:15):
I haven't slept for nine years. I'm just so excited
to just.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
Be glad you're not in Pennsylvania because those guys are
going through some stuff. Yeah, everyone in the world is
going to Pennsylvania every day until the election. Except Trump.
Speaker 3 (27:28):
Well, yeah, you know, I just I think Trump has
so told you what this is about. Again. He's trying
to stay out of jail. I've been involved in a
lot of.
Speaker 5 (27:41):
Presidential work over the years, a lot, you know what,
No Canada, I've ever dealt with, has ever done.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
A single time in a real race, gone golfing. He
golf's three days a week. This guy has checked out.
He's gone by by already.
Speaker 5 (27:56):
There's nothing up there anymore except like various thirty year
old beefs and weird paranoid fantasies and this. And it's
like a it's like a mad Libs. I remember mad
Libs when you were a kid.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
Yeah, it's like he just comes out and it's like
China rights.
Speaker 1 (28:16):
My ignorance, poisoning the blood of our country.
Speaker 5 (28:19):
By the way, I think we should all just take
a moment and a moment of respect for the cat
that was the center of the entire bullshit Haitian story. Yeah,
it was living in the basement, Sassy Baby, Sassy the cat.
Speaker 3 (28:32):
I have to tell you before we came out here.
Speaker 5 (28:34):
I'm on the I'm on my I'm on signal, I'm
on the phone with my my staff. The Lincoln Project
and the cat jokes, the cat jokes night are hot
and heavy, and there may be a cat parody account.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
I'm on Twitter now. I don't know.
Speaker 5 (28:49):
But as Molly said, she goes, it's really kind of
scary when they're calling you to make sure something isn't
going too far.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
That's what I did. They were like, is that okay,
mister Wilson. And I'm like, you're asking him. No, He's
going to tell you it's too much.
Speaker 3 (29:08):
You know, my notorious sense of restraint.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
That's right known for that. But I do think Look,
it is this weird moment and and a lot of
Republicans are checked out or Trump is checked out. You
know who's not checked out? Lindsey Graham. Where did Lindsey
Graham go?
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Right, Lindsey Graham?
Speaker 5 (29:35):
Who have there was such a scenario from a happier life.
But instead he decided that.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
The North Korean propagandist would.
Speaker 5 (29:45):
Be yes, that he was going to become, you know,
Donald Trump's biggest fanboy and shill.
Speaker 3 (29:52):
And so this week he's.
Speaker 5 (29:53):
Out in Nebraska trying to convince the state. And this
should tell you how desperate the Trump people are. Yeah, okay,
he's out there trying to convince the state Senate and
the governor to remove the system of allocation in Nebraska
from the congressional district system and making it a.
Speaker 3 (30:12):
Winner fotball system.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Yeah, one electoral vote vote.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
We've got one state senator out there, I think his
name is McConnell McDonald, McDonald, one.
Speaker 5 (30:25):
State center out there, who could probably use a couple
of nice emails saying you're doing the right thing, brother, Yeah,
because I.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Don't break up with all the death threats.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
I will tell you he's getting.
Speaker 5 (30:34):
He's getting a tidal wave of death threats right now.
That's what these people do. And we we live through it,
both of us, all the time.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
You know.
Speaker 5 (30:43):
And the good the good part about it is that
ninety nine point of them are meal Team six gravy
seals sitting behind.
Speaker 3 (30:52):
Their keyboards somewhere. I will I will destroy you, cock.
But but you know, you always have to watch out
for the one percent asshole.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
Yeah, and sometimes they show up by your house.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
They show up out my house from time to time.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
They've even shown up, I mean yeah, although although I.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
Have I have. There is a summon out front yea
no trespassing private property.
Speaker 5 (31:13):
And there's one close to the door that says, this
is a reminder Florida as a standard ground state.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Good for you, but these enter down.
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Harris has a gun.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
Yeah, do what?
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Does everybody have a gun but me?
Speaker 3 (31:28):
That was what I was like I have offered you
so many guns. Oh no, okay, can you imagine Molly?
Speaker 5 (31:36):
Can you imagine Molly strapped?
Speaker 1 (31:41):
You can't have guns in New York City. That's supposed
to well, Donald Trump has except everyone else.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Donald Trump had a gun in New York City. But
he can't need more. You know why, because he's a fellow.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
Are you concerned about Project twenty twenty five and how
awful Trump's second term could be, Well so are we,
which is why we teamed up with iHeart to make
a limited series with the experts on what a disaster
Project twenty twenty five would be for America's future. Right now,
we have just released the final episode of this five
(32:15):
episode series. They're all available by looking up Molly Jong
Fast Project twenty twenty five on YouTube, and if you
are more of a podcast person and not say a YouTuber,
you can hit play and put your phone in the
lock screen and it will play back just like the podcast.
All five episodes are online now. We need to educate
(32:36):
Americans on what Trump's second term would or could due
to this country, So please watch it and spread the word.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Souzaid Craig is a journalist of the New York Times
and the author of Lucky Loser, How Donald Trump Squad
or does Father's fortune have built the illusion of success?
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Welcome to Fast Politics, Uzann Craig, Thanks for this is exciting.
I'm very excited about this book. But also we are friends,
so in real life we are. It's especially great to
have somebody on the podcast where you really like them
and you're just delighted to get to talk to them.
(33:17):
So that is I you know, sometimes I say it
because like I feel like it's a conflict, but I'm
saying it here because it's like I feel like it's
just a delight.
Speaker 6 (33:25):
Well, I want to say, you've been through some of
this book journey with me and I've been talking about it,
and yeah, I saw each other so much during the
Trump criminal trial. You know, we were on air a lot,
and you know, we've been through a lot, and you know,
I people covered Trump usually get to know people better
during one of his trials. So here we are. But
it's I'm really glad we've become friends.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
So yeah, oh, me too. And the book, it is
so beautiful and it's so exciting and it's called Lucky Loser.
How Donald trump'squandered his family's fortune and created the illusion
of success. I do want to say one of the
moments of the last two weeks that it really has
spoke to me is when Vice President Harris said to
(34:07):
Donald Trump, you inherited all this money? Were you like? Oh? Wow?
Speaker 6 (34:15):
You know what's interesting is that story keeps coming up.
We faced it a lot in twenty sixteen because he
didn't have a record of being President Ryan and a
lot of people were asking him about his businesses, and
he would keep talking about how he got a small
loan from his father, that his father was this small
time builder out in the outer boroughs of New York.
(34:37):
I sort of thought, in some ways we'd gotten beyond it.
But it is something that gets under his skin, and
that's why she brought it up. And again he just
doubles down on this idea that he did it all himself,
and he didn't. But he won't let it go. And
it's almost like he has come to believe that he
didn't inherit hundreds of millions of dollars from his father.
(34:59):
It's one of those things. It just gets under his skin.
And she has his number, and she asked him and again.
He told the lie.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Here's a really interesting thing that I'm hoping you could
talk to us about. This is sort of before the book.
You are the person who got a little bit of
the tax returns.
Speaker 6 (35:17):
Right right, So this is kind of a real.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
This is an amazing, like cinematic moment.
Speaker 6 (35:22):
It's a journle with Odyssey, and I love telling it
because I love reporting so much. And it was okay,
good this moment where So I was covering Governor Cuomo
in Albany for a few years and then I get
set down to City Hall to be the bureau chief.
Down at City Hall, build A. Blasio is the mayor.
I was there three weeks. I get a call from
the Metro editor. He says, Sue, He says, can you
(35:43):
just take a break for a couple months. We want
to just we want to do kind of one big
story on what Donald Trump owns or doesn't own in
New York. I worked on it with a colleague, and
I was promised, you know, Donald Trump's probably going to
be out of the race, you know, in six months
or so. So this is really short term assignment. So
I started covering him. I never went back to City Hall.
I didn't even go to get the stuff that was
(36:03):
on my desk, and we just started writing about him.
So did Russ Butner, my colleague who I wrote a
book with Everybody in two thousand and sixteen, was looking
for Donald Trump's tax returns and he had promised he
would release them, and then he didn't. And this was,
you know, I think a lot of reporters across the
city and in different newspapers around the country were looking
(36:24):
for them, including us, and we did not have much luck,
but we were still writing stories that we could find
about his finances. And then one day in September twenty sixteen,
several weeks before the twenty sixteen election, I'm just, you know,
wandering around the news room one afternoon. I was actually
closing a story involving Hillary Clinton, but I loved mail,
and I swung by my mailbox to see if there
(36:46):
was any mail. There was a manila envelope in my
mailbox and I it was addressed to me. I opened it,
and inside weird three pages of what looked like Donald
Trump's nineteen ninety five tax returns. And I looked at
it and I scanned it, and I saw very quickly
that his losses. If this document was true in nineteen
(37:06):
ninety five had almost a billion dollars in accumulated lots.
It's for just that year. So this guy who's run
on the idea of being a self made billionaire, is
you know, just hemorrhaging money if this is true. But
we worked round the clock on that to try and
confirm it, and we did. We talked to the accountant
who signed the document and he confirmed it was true.
(37:29):
So we went to press with that. That was like
a huge story at the time because it was the
first tax returns that had been obtained. Even though they
were older, that were we were able to get to publication.
So then fast forward, we start looking at this just
this idea that he came from nothing, like he ran
for president on the idea that he is a self
made man, he's a billionaire, and he sold this story
(37:51):
to the country and a lot of people believe it.
So we started to look at his father's wealth and
we spent actually eighteen months my colleagues rescipe her in
another colleague of mine, looking at what Fred Trump owned
and the story that came out of that. By the way,
Mary Trump, donald Trump's niece, no one knew at the time,
but she was working with us and she had given us.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
Yeah, that was what I was going to ask. She
was the one who'd slipped the pages to you right.
Speaker 6 (38:18):
Right right, and so not the first ones, but this
current story. So we were working, you know, working away
on Fred and you know, she had been in litigation
with the family in two thousand and we went out
to see her. She was very reluctant at first to
talk to me. I went to the door, I wrote
her letters just I was trying out to be a pastor.
But I was persistent, and she eventually agreed to see me,
and we talked and she said, I don't really know
(38:40):
what's in those boxes. And I knew there was something
in there because she'd gone to Discovery. She goes, I
don't know. It was like, you know, almost twenty years ago.
She goes, you know what, I'm going to go get them.
She was really upset about what was going on about
her uncle and is not a Republican and just was
sort of appalled by the whole situation. So she secretly
agreed to help us, and she went and got all
(39:02):
of the boxes that were hers, that were at her
lawyer's office and she gave them to us, and then
for months, it went on for almost a year, we
analyzed all of this information. And the information that we
got mainly had to do with bred Trump's empire because
this lawsuit she was involved in was in two thousand.
But we were able to piece together from that and
(39:22):
from other sources that we had that Donald Trump inherited
at the time and it's more now if we adjust
it for inflation, but it was more than four hundred
million dollars and that fortune. We were also able to
see he enhanced it through tax fraud. That was huge.
That story was, you know, really significant and really just
(39:43):
laid bare this this lie that he has been telling
that he's this self made guy. And we were super fortunate.
We want to Pullitzer Prize for that, which was amazing.
And then like in journalism, you know, we're now like
what do we do? And and you know, what's the
next story? And we got at that point, somebody else
reached out to us and they had more tax return
(40:03):
information and that tax information was from the nineteen covered
a lot of the nineteen eighties, and we started looking
at it. We were able to first of all, verify
that it was true, and we found things like the
year he released The Art of the DL this book
that he's the ultimate deal baker, that he lost tens
of millions of dollars that year. And we also were
(40:26):
able to because we were able to get a hold
of some old IRS databases with a lot of taxpayer
information in it, we were able to see that I
think it was at least in one year he lost
more than any other individual taxpayer in America. It was crazy.
And then, you know, we kept poking around for more stories,
and we had found another source who gave us twenty
(40:49):
some years of Donald Trump's personal and corporate tax return
information and that was just sort of the you know,
opened up the whole world for us where we were
able to seek year in and year out what all
of his businesses were making. And we found out, I
think it's what he made from The Apprentice, which was
important because he'd made so much money from this product,
(41:10):
placement on the shows, from licensing deals. But we also
saw that for the most part, all of his businesses
they lose money. And so you see he's inherited, you know,
this huge amount of money from his father. He made
almost the same amount from Mark Burnett. It was in
The Apprentice. It was sort of a second inheritance, and
then he lost it investing in all these kind of
(41:31):
crazy businesses that he's keeping. You know, they lose money.
He has to put more capital. And that's where we
came up with the title. You know, he's been very
fortunate in life. He was born into a rich family.
He met Mark Burnett turned him into a television star
where he made more money, but he's essentially a loser
when it comes to business.
Speaker 1 (41:50):
So interesting and also just fascinating how you sort of
get there now. I want you to talk to me.
We're going to pivot though we're very much in the
same whalehouse here to talk about the Stormy Daniels story
that's in the book.
Speaker 6 (42:08):
I had a feeling he might zero in and that
when it's a listing one. So you know, in Stormy Daniels,
Donald Trump has denied that he has had a fair
sexual relation with her. But it was the center of
a recent trial in Manhattan that he was found guilty
on thirty four felt any counts, and as part of
the trial we learned and actually it's in her book,
but she had a trip to Trump Tower in February
(42:32):
of two thousand and seven, and there's been discussion about
it in different places, and we just found this crazy
story that we hadn't heard before. I mean, it just
sort of goes to how frenatic his life was at
the time. He was working on The Apprentice, he was
just getting all these licensing deals in. He was in
the celebrity world. And we talked to this fellow named
Neil Hobday. He was working overseas for Donald Trump, mainly
(42:55):
putting together golf courses. He was working on the Scottish
golf course. That was one of his main charges, and
a lot of what he would have to do, the
interactions he would have with Donald would be in Scotland,
but he would come to Head Office occasionally to see
Donald Trump. So he's in New York in February of
two thousand and seven. He comes in to meet Donald
and Donald is in a meeting with a woman who
(43:16):
is very well endowed and blonde hair, and Neil's invited
into the meeting and there's a quick moment where Neil
meets this woman and then she leaves, and then Donald
Trump and Neil hobbed They are standing there and Donald's like,
you're not going to believe this, And he shows Neil
this deck of playing cards that this woman had given
(43:37):
Donald and it was a playing cards and on the
front there was various positions of the woman naked in
various sexual positions and Donald just was totally delighted on this.
And then he also was there. He was laughing with
Neil and said, oh, yeah, and this woman has pitched
me on a pornographic evangelical channel.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
Oh I'm smart.
Speaker 6 (43:56):
Neil is just like, this is nuts. And then you're
he realizes that the woman that he met was Stormy Daniels.
And then we've been in touch with Stormy Daniels and
she remember, yeah, and she remembers giving Donald Trump the
playing cards. And that's just one of many anecdotes in
the book that just capture We tried at each turn
to really capture just what Donald Trump's like life was
(44:20):
like at any given moment in the year, and that
one was just one that just really spoke to sort
of I think some of the craziness that was going
on in his life at the time.
Speaker 1 (44:29):
Wow, right, And also that she exists and that they
had met, and that all of his lying about it is.
I mean, did you have other stories like that where
they were so clearly not true? But somehow Trump has
refuted them again and again, even though you know you
have documentation of them in the book.
Speaker 3 (44:48):
No.
Speaker 6 (44:49):
You know, it's interesting he did not speak to us
for the book. We tried several times to engage the
Trump campaign, and also we tried to engage them for
the book excerpt that ran in the New York Times.
You know, when we have a book coming out, excerpt
sometimes run in different places. And he has declined to
engage us. You know, I haven't spoken to him personally,
so I can't speak for him on it, but I
would imagine he's not happy that we have a lot
(45:11):
of his financial information, but he has refused to even
pick up the phone and speak to us, or his
people haven't even responded to our questions.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
But he is suing you.
Speaker 6 (45:19):
Well, that's an interesting question. Let's break that down. He
sued us a few years ago, and he sued The
New York Times, myself, my colleague Russ Butner, and another
colleague of mine, who were involved in that twenty eighteen story.
In that suit, Mary Trump was also named, and he
went to court. He was very upset that Mary had
signed confidentiality agreement when when she came to the settlement
(45:44):
in two thousand and according to his lawyers, you know,
she had agreed not to give out any documents, and
of course she gave me all these documents. So we
went to court and we were in court with you know,
Mary's attorneys were there, and ultimately, you know, he was
accusing me of torture interference for you know, coursing Mary
to give me the documents. You know, she wanted to
(46:04):
give us the document She's been clear about that in
her book. But he came after all of us, and
then the judge threw us out of the case. Dal
Trump's case against Mary is still going forward, but we
were we were thrown out, and he was forced to
pay our legal fees can do about four hundred thousand dollars.
Then supperately on Sunday, I got a letter in my
(46:25):
inbox Sunday night from Donald Trump's lawyers and it was
addressed to the editor of The New York Times. Rus Butner,
my co author on Lucky Loser, and myself about the
excerpt that ran in the New York Times. And it
was a cease and desist letter. They were unhappy with
some things that were set in the article, and they're
sort of putting us on warning by sending that sort
(46:46):
of letter that they may sue right now, just against
the paper. I don't know if they've read the book
and what else they have planned, or if they even
and tend to sue. Donald Trump's pretty litigious, So I'd
never like to say where it's going to head. But
that's always serious stuff when it happens. You know, we
feel we stand by every word in the book and
every word that was in the excerpt, but you know,
you never know where things could go.
Speaker 1 (47:05):
Yeah, and I think it is the playbook right, This
is how he does it.
Speaker 6 (47:10):
Right, and he you know, and having you know, lawsuits
filed does you know, sometimes have a chilling effect. It
can just suck up time and energy. And you know, we,
you know, are just determined to continue our work and
sort of just set it aside. If it's going to happen,
it's going to happen. We can't control it. This work
is so important and I just want to say, like
the New York Times support of our work has been incredible.
(47:33):
We have been at this for almost a decade now,
and they supported us from the beginning. I mean, we
kept getting stories, but they did not waiver. They feel
that it's incredibly important that readers in America understand the
workings of the person who's in the oval office of
their finances, and they understand the pressures that they might
(47:55):
be under. And if we don't understand the finances, sometimes
decisions could be made that could benefit that individual, and
the American public will never know. And that New York
Times was early and understanding how important it is that
we have as much information as we can about the
finances of the people running for the highest office in
the land and the person then holding that office.
Speaker 1 (48:17):
Yeah, and I think it's really important as we're talking
about that people on the left and on the right
are often mad about editorial decisions. They're mad about sometimes
they're mad about the titles of pieces or you know,
a ross dose are op ed. But a lot of
(48:38):
the nuts and bolts of how we understand the world
come from these reporting, which is a completely separate animal
and has nothing to do with what happens on the
editorial page, and places like New York Times really do
provide this reporting that otherwise we would not have no right.
Speaker 6 (48:57):
And it's hard and it's expensive to dedicate people to
do it, and we try to get it right every day,
and I think we do. And I think that the times,
you know, in my small, little you know, my little
life where I'm doing this, I think it's been worth it.
It's important, and I think in this world, you know,
one of the questions is, well, is this book really
going to matter? Is your work at the times it's
really going to matter?
Speaker 3 (49:16):
You know?
Speaker 6 (49:16):
People, you know, we're sort of post back. And I
still think that the majority of Americans want facts. They do.
I think that sometimes the people that we hear from
are just the people with the megaphones and they make
the loudest noise so they're amplified. But I think when
you sit back, the vast majority of Americans do want
the facts. And Russ and I we wrote this book.
(49:38):
At the end, we were very careful about footnoting it
because we know people are going to want to note
now where the information comes. But twenty or fifty years
from now that they're going to be able to pick
up this book, a lot of the people won't be alive.
They won't be able to bear witness again. But we've
got the footnotes so that you can see where the
information came from. It's important, you know, It's I always
(49:58):
joke I'm a reporter. If you cut me, I probably
will bleed ink. And I just as this is, this
is my cause, this is you know, the you know
what runs through my veins.
Speaker 1 (50:07):
Yeah, it's a really good point. But I also just
wonder do you think that Donald Trump is making money
off running for president and that that is enough money
that could get him out of the sort of financial
peril that he has been in and out of.
Speaker 6 (50:22):
It's tough. You know, he's making money currently selling things
like sneakers and bibles, and that's not enough. Not only
when you think he's you know, he's shrinking his empire.
He sold the lease for the old Post Office hotel
in Washington. That hotel was losing money. He's facing just
crushing fines in New York on various fronts. Let's just
take the New York Attorney General's case of that is
(50:44):
upheld on appeal. He'll have to write a check for
you know, upwards of four hundred million dollars. I just
don't think that those sort of licensing deals are enough
to shore up you know, what he's facing it. We
talk a bit about that in the book, and I
just I just want to say, moll when people pick
up the book. There's been you know, different books written.
A lot of them have been about the White House.
Some of them have been before. But our book really
(51:05):
does try to step back and we tell a story
of one hundred years. It's a narrative, and we start
with Fred Trump, we go through his relationship with Donald
and all the way up to the White House, and
we tell a story and we build it with anecdotes.
It's just a different sort of book. I think of
it as kind of a wild ride. There's a lot
of crazy stuff in it, but we try to look
(51:26):
at Fred and Donald and sort of how Donald became
who he was, not just through his father, but also
that time in the seventies and the eighties when he
was rising through New York and nobody was questioning his
claims that he was a billionaire, and just how that happened,
because it also looks a little bit at America as well,
and how he was enabled in that time to get
(51:46):
to the point where he is today.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you. I hope
you'll come back.
Speaker 6 (51:51):
I will and thank you very much. It's great to
hear your voice again. And I'll see you soon.
Speaker 3 (51:57):
And a moment.
Speaker 2 (52:01):
Jesse Cannon, Molly Jung Fast, I'm going to read you
a truth from Donald Trump that you're going to be shocked.
Doesn't contain much, you got it.
Speaker 1 (52:10):
You gotta do air quotes around truth.
Speaker 2 (52:11):
Yes, well that that's a little hard and podcasting.
Speaker 3 (52:14):
AnyWho.
Speaker 2 (52:15):
Women are poorer than they were four years ago, are
less healthy than they were four years ago, are less
safe on the streets than they were four years ago,
are more depressed and unhappy than they were four years ago,
and are less optimistic that and confident in the future
than they were four years ago. Fix all that and fast.
Women will be happy, healthy, confident, and free. You will
no longer be thinking about abortion because it is now
(52:37):
where it always has to be. With the states and
a vote for the people. Powerful exceptions like those that
Ronald Reagan insisted on, rape, incest, and the life of
the mother. I will protect women at a level never
seen before. They will be healthy, hopeful, safe and secure.
Their lives will be happy, beautiful and great again.
Speaker 1 (52:56):
My favorite part about this post. I'm not even gonna
say truth because it's not anywhere near a truth. Is
that Donald Trump provided this in all caps with almost
no punctuation. So look, he clearly saw a focus group
that said, this fucking guy is losing women, but he's
(53:17):
not losing women by enough. That's all I can say.
Speaker 3 (53:20):
If you're a.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
Woman and you have any sense of, you know, wanting
to have any control over your body, you should not
vote for this fucking guy. Heart agree and he and
his hot takes about abortion, which, by the way, he
is the person who took that away from the and
(53:41):
from women in this country. His hot takes are our
moment of fuckery. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.
Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to hear the
best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos.
If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to
a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks
(54:03):
for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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