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April 19, 2024 42 mins

 Rep. Dan Goldman gives us an on-the-ground report of the chaos in the Republican-led Congress. Senator Mark Kelly talks to us about the implications of passing aid for Ukraine. MSNBC Daily editor James Downie examines Trump’s debilitating mental state as he stands trial.

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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. We are now two hundred days from
the twenty twenty four election, Emir two hundred days.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
We have such a great show for you.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Today, Senator Mark Kelly talks to us about what's happening
in Arizona and the implications.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Of passing AID for Ukraine.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Then we'll talk to Congressman Dan Goldman about the drama
in the House of Representatives. But first we have MSNBC
Daily Editor James Downie.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Welcome back to Fast Politics. Jim.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Great to be here, as always.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Yesterday when you listen to this on Friday.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
In the United States House of Representatives, I'm just going
to read you one little bit of where they are,
because I feel that our listeners need to glean this
information firsthand. But basically, from what I understand, House Freedom
Caucus members, you know them, the best of the brightest,

(01:05):
and I mean that only ironically are signing up to
take shifts to guard the House floor in order to
prevent resolutions they consider unsavory. Imagine what they consider unsavory.
This is from Olivia, Beaver's at Politico that they consider
unsavory from slipping through that could.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Curb their power.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
Per to our sources, this Floor Action Response Team Fart
Floor Action Response Team fart okay aims to guard against
a voice vote or unanimous consent vote where action could
be stealthily taken against them and their members. Resolutions to

(01:49):
strip Massy Norman Roy from Rules Committee.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
There's a fart Joe.

Speaker 3 (01:54):
Huh, there is. I'm glad you brought it up because
I was worried about standards.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
There are no standards here.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
I find it's easier to let the host bring the
fart jokes than to just drop in with them to
start off. It's remarkable what's happening there. This came at
the same time that a number of reporters mentioned that
Johnson was basically surrounded by Freedom Caucus types and at
some point a non Freedom Caucus member Derek van Orton.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Who's famous for screaming at interns.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
Yes, that is correct, famous for Yes, he got in
trouble for screaming atsentate pages. Yes last year. And I
think at this point we can say has a bit
of an issue with his temper. Nah No, but he
I guess decided to butt in and apparently called Matt
Gates tubby. So things are going extremely well.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
That is terrible, because my man Gates do us so
much to look beautiful.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
I'm sure that really heard.

Speaker 3 (02:49):
Yeah, I mean there's a reason why you have so
many I mean we saw with Mike Gallagher, with with
the number of other Republicans who are heading for the
exits because basically the house is so dysfunctional. I think
you were right. That was Van Orden.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
The thing that's so interesting about Van Orden and his
just insanity here is that I don't even think. I mean,
while Mike Johnson has a lot of problems, he's quite
svelt and adorable.

Speaker 3 (03:18):
And he's made a remarkable change as well in terms
of his position on Ukraine eate. I mean, it's interesting
considering that he was against it for so long, and
yet it seems like since he's moved into leadership, and
whether it's because of.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Somebody's explained to him, clearly.

Speaker 3 (03:31):
Somebody sat him down and explained to him, hey, here's
here's the stakes, here's what's going to happen if we
don't pass the eight. He seems to have changed his
mind and he today was quoting Rold Reagan talking about
peace through strength, and he seems to have really changed
his view. And obviously the Freedom Caucus does not take
kindly to losing their leverage to just keep Congress a

(03:54):
laughing stock. It's incredible.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
What I thought was interesting was somebody said to me
earlier in the week, Oh, the Democrats are going to
save Johnson if he votes for AID and Nana. So
I was like, well, obviously that's what's going to happen.
So I texted a friend of mine who's a member
of Congress, and I said, are you guys going to
save Johnson if he votes for AID? And he said,

(04:17):
we will only save Johnson if he wants to be saved,
and right now it does not look like he wants
to be saved.

Speaker 3 (04:22):
I think it's difficult for Johnson because the moment he
gets saved by Democrats, it legitimizes the current talking point
on the far right. I mean, among these Freedom caucas
types that he's already acting as the Democrat speaker. It's
difficult right now for him to say the least. I mean, it's,
you know, a problem largely if his own making to
some degree of Kevin McCarthy's making to some degree of

(04:44):
Republicans falling short in the mid terms and Democrats of
farming in the midterms. That not to the degree that
the Democrats kept the House, but that they kept such
a narrow margin so that these freedom caucas types have
this kind of leverage. If Kevin McCarthy had done what
he promised to do, the Republicans would have twenty or
thirty se to play with rather than well, a never
shrinking amount right now. One, Yeah, there was another congressman

(05:09):
today and just announced his retirement. I believe the number
is up to getting to the mid twenties now. So
now I don't think that person's retiring early, but you
never know. You get another retirement, and who knows what
kind of chaos could break out in terms of the speakership.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
If you get another retirement, then it's even right.

Speaker 3 (05:24):
Yeah, assuming it happens before the next special election to fill.

Speaker 1 (05:27):
Right, and some of those seats can't be filled right.
Oh No, here's another I'm seeing that the Breitbart reporter
says Tubby was directly directed at Matt Gates.

Speaker 3 (05:40):
Well, there's conflicting sources. In regardless, I think it's clear
that chaos reigns.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
Yeah, I mean, just such an insane way to run
a caucus, and you don't think about how much like
Nancy Pelosi, some people liked her, some people didn't like her,
but she was wildly effective. And you didn't really get
to see how wildly effective she was until Democrats lost.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
The House, and now you have really a.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
Group where they just cannot you really see this as
actually kind of a hard job.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
Absolutely. I think since Pelosi became speaker, there have been
four different Republicans I believe as speaker of you know,
like sort of as speaker themselves. You've had Bayner, You've
had Ryan McCarthy and now Johnson and sort of decreasing
abilities and even from Bayer, like Bayner struggled with. Bayner
had to call off votes just before they came to

(06:34):
a vote in the House because he didn't have the numbers.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
Yeah, but at least he didn't lose them.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
At least he didn't lose them. I was I'd say that,
you know, the ones who've come after him have been
even less effective. But as you said, I mean from
the work up we go, you go back to, for example,
the Affordable Care Act. You know what Pelosi did there
to keep Democrats in line, to keep some very vulnerable Democrats.
A lot of them ended up losing their seats in
subsequent elections because of that vote, but she kept them
in line and passed both that and a lot of legislation.

(07:00):
I think that, as you said, that skill is absolutely remarkable.
And when you write the summary of Nancy Pelosi's career,
I think it's her vote counting skills that are right
at the top of her abilities.

Speaker 1 (07:10):
Yeah, and it didn't need I mean, you really see
how much you don't need to fuck up. Like what
he's doing every time is sort of being like, well,
it's in the lap of the gods. Like that's a
crazy way to run a caucus. It turns out that
Jesus doesn't web votes.

Speaker 3 (07:28):
It turns out his prayers haven't been necessarily answered.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
Right, Like, if I were him, I might think about
becoming an atheist or maybe changing religions. It's something where
they're better at vote counting. Talk to me about like
this trial. When this trial started, there were so many
people who were like, this is bad, you shouldn't do this.
There's no reason to try him. Somebody told me they
were like, you know, presidents do stuff like this. I

(07:53):
was like, presidents do stuff like paying off an adult
film star when their lawyer takes a home at what
he loan, which is technically a campaign contribution.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
And then I mean, just talk us through.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
I mean, what you think about this, because the pictures
coming out of this trial have been a guy who
can barely stay awake, and I mean he seems kind
of slow and also kind of unhinged. I don't see
how this visual helps him with voters.

Speaker 3 (08:22):
I don't really see either. I think a lot of
it will be determined by the outcome of the case,
which we just can't simply know at the moment. But
I think in terms of bringing the case, I think
that people who have worked in the Manhattan DA's office,
you know, who are no longer there, but who have
worked in that office, have made the case in other
places that this sort of crime is prosecuted. And we

(08:46):
talk a lot about nobody being above the law, and
that should apply to the president. I think one of
the reasons we consistently get in trouble and it feels
like Donald Trump is consistently avoids accountability, is that whether
it be other politicians or banks, or the Supreme Court.
People are reluctant to hold him to the same standard
that they would hold people who are not Donald Trump,

(09:07):
and it makes it all the more important that a
case like this be prosecuted, even if it does feel
grungy to some people or it feels smaller potatoes than
the January sixth related cases. That's fine, that's a fair
feeling to have, but that doesn't mean that you don't
also prosecute in this circumstance. As well as for Trump's behavior,
I think, yeah, anybody who's I mean, you have you know,

(09:28):
you've been watching him for years. On the surface, like
thirty seconds of watching him at a rally in twenty
twenty four or twenty sixteen, they might seem the same
for briefly, but the longer you watch, the more you
see that this is just a guy who's you know,
as he talks about sleepy Joe, he's old, He loses
the plot, he gets bored more easily, he drifts off
more easily.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
He confuses Nancy Putlosi with Nikki Hali.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
From the work go, there was a lot of eyebrow raising,
slash terrifying rhetoric at his rallies, but there wasn't the
same amount of straight up confusion that we see right now.
And that Let's be real, if Joe Biden made these
kinds of errors, or if Joe Biden had, you know,
had closed his eyes briefly during some public appearance, it
would be all over a lot of media outlets. It'd

(10:14):
be the front page story. But because it's Trump, we
have a different standard.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
Trump has just held to a completely different standard than
everyone else.

Speaker 3 (10:20):
There's no argument. I mean, you get back to even
something as recent as the you know, right now we're
talking about the Manhattan the criminal case, but you talk
about the civil case for example, and the amount of
second chances that he's been given to come up with
this bond. He gets his bond or disc he has
this auto loan billionaire come in and give them.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
A bond that may actually be sketchy.

Speaker 3 (10:39):
Right, the bond that may be sketchy. That's still being challenged.
That's going to be determined in a hearing next week.

Speaker 4 (10:44):
And also, but.

Speaker 3 (10:45):
Even if it isn't, even if it's declared valid, the
guy who provided the bond was on the record is saying, well,
we probably should have charged him a higher fee, like
I mean, this is just he just gets second chance
after second chance, and I think that that is why
it so often feels like he's not gonna face consequences.

Speaker 1 (10:59):
Yeah, you know, there's a lot of anxiety I feel
like everywhere that Trump will be president again and that
it's sort of an inevitability. I don't think that, But
I would love you to just sort of talk us
through why actually incumbency is a huge advantage and what
you sort of what you think.

Speaker 3 (11:18):
Yeah, I think that this far out you look at
the polls, is Biden winning.

Speaker 4 (11:22):
No.

Speaker 3 (11:22):
But I think that there was a narrative there for
maybe about particularly six weeks or two months to start
the year, that oh, Trump's winning, et cetera. I think
that was always overstated at the time. I think it's
just actually inaccurate now for the president in terms of
the incumbency. I mean, I think that Biden being the
president certainly gives him an advantage in breaking into coverage
because Trump's always going to suck up so much coverage,

(11:44):
and even more so with his criminal trials, because I
mean the criminal trials, I'm like, you know, there was criticism,
I think quite valo criticism for example of carrying Trump's
rallies live back in twenty sixteen, which, like political rallies,
is not unprecedent. A criminal trial of a president is unprecedent,
right right, as a former president and by being president,
can break through that can be announcing legislation, can be
announcing initiatives that can try and cut through it and

(12:06):
appeal to certain voters. The polls have started to move
in Biden's direction as more voters have, particularly the Democratic side,
have started to pay more attention because there wasn't a
contested primary on the Democratic side. Really, there were some
attempts by some kas that just didn't catch on.

Speaker 1 (12:19):
There wasn't a real left primary, which is unusual.

Speaker 3 (12:23):
Yeah, I think now that voters are starting to tune
in and starting to come to terms sort of grips
with a Trump Biden rematch, that the polls are started
to move a little bit in Biden's direction, And I
think we'll see what particularly as Biden brings his money
advantage to bear, I think we'll see to movement. But
it's going to be a close election, I think, quite
right to the end.

Speaker 1 (12:39):
Unfortunately, I vacillate between thinking that and I've had a
lot of smart people on here have said that, and
then I vacillate between thinking like, there's also a possibility that,
like the unprecedented nature of this creates an unprecedented scenario.
I mean, it's hard to imagine Trump changing hearts and minds.
One of the things yesterday that was lost in the
news cycleon I think think it really was lost in

(13:01):
the new cycle because Republicans are so good at office scating.
They had yet another failed impeachment with the first time
in one hundred years they tried to impeach a cabinet secretary,
and again my Arcis was not impeached on high crimes
and misdemeanors. He was impeached on not pleasing the GOP
bass Can you talk.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
About that absolutely? As you said, the movement to impeach majorcists,
which had been in the works, you know, on the
House side for pretty much since I think the first
day of Biden's presidency, that basically came and went in
a day. The articles were introduced in the Senate, where
they were delivered to the Sun on Tuesday. The Senate
held a vote on Wednesday and decided, as you said,

(13:43):
that they noted that these charges as you said, first
of all, this is only the second cabinet secretary ever
to be impeached. The first one was impeached on bribery grounds.
The presidential impeachments have been on abuse of office, not
policy disagreements. So you have Republicans complaining Democrats moved to
dismiss the articles, to basically table them, and to say

(14:05):
that what you are accusing Secretary of my Erkus of
is not an impeachable offense. And you have Republicans out
there saying, even some who expressed skepticism about the charge
against my york As, people like Senator Mitt Romney who
still voted, they wanted to have a debate and they
were The Republicans are arguing, oh, this is unprecedented. How
could you This creates a terrible president for future impeachments
because parties can just dismiss them. I mean, first of all,

(14:27):
I would argue it's a more terrible president for Donald
Trump to have not faced but not been convicted for
January six. But let's set that aside for a second.
But the fact is that the charges in this were
entirely unprecedented. In arguing that this was an impeachable offense,
I don't think anybody's happy with the current immigration system.
I think that's pretty clear. But we all know that
Democrats and a few center Republicans struck a deal that

(14:49):
frankly was way too lopsided anyway towards conservative as I mean,
Conservatives got basically everything they wanted, Democrats got very little
of what they wanted. That was the deal, and at
Donald Trump's beha, Republicans killed it because they don't actually
want to fix what's going on the board. You know,
Fox News wants a t for b role, Donald Trump
wants to campaign on. That's what they want to talk about,
especially now that they've you know, they're not talking about

(15:11):
the economy and inflation as much anymore. They aren't talking
about crime rates as much anymore because I don't know,
if you saw the reports earlier this week that homicides
are down and way down in cities around the country.
You know, they're losing a lot of their main talking
points against Biden. That was going to be the triumph
after all that anti woke stuff didn't work in the
midterms and then again twenty twenty three, there was going
to be the economy, immigration, and crime. And they've already

(15:34):
lost big chunks of two of those three, so they
just want to keep the immigration as a talking point.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yeah, that's true. Thank you so much, Jim. I hope
you'll come back.

Speaker 3 (15:43):
I'd always love to be here.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
Spring is here, and I bet you are trying to
look fashionable, So why not pick up some fashionable all
new Fast Politics merchandise. We just opened a news store
with all new designed just for you. Get t shirts, hoodies, hats,
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(16:09):
Mark Kelly is the senior Senator from the state of Arizona.
Welcome back to Fast Politics, Senator Mark Kelly. Thank you
so excited to have you more in Arizona. And I
mean so you must have known that there was insanity
in your state house, but now the rest of the
country knows.

Speaker 4 (16:29):
Well.

Speaker 5 (16:29):
I wouldn't characterize it as it's like that this whole
issue and where we are with this law from eighteen
sixty four is not who we are as a state.

Speaker 4 (16:39):
It's the fringe.

Speaker 5 (16:40):
It's a fringe number of people in the state House,
the state Senate, it's a Supreme Court that surprised us.
To be honest, I don't think many people were expecting.
Surprised us with this decision to bring back this one
hundred and sixty year old draconian law. Now, obviously women
are scared of this, and the stakes are very high.

(17:03):
The legislature so far has failed to fix this. They
need to keep trying because it is putting the lives
of women at risk.

Speaker 1 (17:11):
So what I'm so struck by with is the Democrats
in the state legislature, despite the fact that this could
really help them electorally, are working really hard to try
to overturn this law, and the Republicans are refusing to budge.
And in fact, we've seen video offs the floor of
Republicans hooting themselves and clapping as they continue to really

(17:36):
sign their electoral defeat warrant for November.

Speaker 2 (17:42):
I mean, I'm so struck by Trump would.

Speaker 1 (17:45):
Not allow the border bill to get passed because he
wanted to run on it, And here are Democrats really
trying to do the right thing for women.

Speaker 5 (17:52):
Well, I think it's issue after issue, whether it's border security.
We worked on a bipartisan proposal and we're really close
to getting it pass in the Senate, and unfortunately, my
Republican colleagues ran away from it because they thought this
would help Donald Trump. He didn't want to do it,
and he needed it for the political purposes, so they
wanted to continue to have the problem instead the solution,

(18:16):
which we have to live with this problem every single
day in Arizona, and I'm going to continue to fight
to fix this same issue here, you know, sort of
similar Democrats in the State House the state Senate want
to fix this because it is a problem that needs
to be addressed. We can't have women's lives at risk
because of a law that was passed before Arizona was

(18:38):
a state in eighteen sixty. More So, I think I've
seen this story before where myself and my Democratic colleagues
have been on the side of let's try to solve
the problem, and unfortunately, in many cases, my Republican colleagues
have been more about the politics.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
It's not like Republicans have a super majority in the
state House. They just have a few more votes. But
they have really stuck on this really extreme position. Why
do you think that is.

Speaker 5 (19:05):
Well, I think some of them really believe this is
what our states should look like. Unfortunately, and they do
feel it's appropriate to criminalize doctors for doing their jobs.
I don't think that represents most of Arizona. I think
that's a few fringe figures in the state House in

(19:25):
the state Senate. But when you're talking about a very
slim majority one or two seats, a couple individuals really
have an outsized impact.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
So right now in the Senate you have this foreign surveillance.
It's come through the House. Now you guys are looking
at it. Is that what's next on the agenda? And
can you talk us through it a little bit?

Speaker 5 (19:45):
Vote is open right now on reauthorization of IZA for
a couple of years or taking the house build There
were some changes, there's some additional protections, there were some concerns.

Speaker 4 (19:54):
We've made some changes to it.

Speaker 5 (19:55):
We'll have an opportunity to vote on it, and I
think we'll have the votes to get it passed. It
is a very important piece of legislation that keeps us safe.
If we don't get this done here this week and
it expires a lot of the intelligence that agencies rely
on to make decisions about our own national security, we

(20:16):
won't have access to that anymore. So it's important we
get this pass and I think it's going to pass Today.
We have our first vote on it going on right now.
I'm going to leave the studio here and go to
the Florida vote.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
The other thing that the House is practically in fisticuffs
over is these foreign aid packages, whatever they look like.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
Ami, are you optimistic?

Speaker 1 (20:35):
David Frum said this the other day when I was
with him on a show and we were talking, and
he said, and I don't even realized this, that Republicans
have never authorized any extra aid for Ukraine since they
took over the half.

Speaker 5 (20:47):
I mean as a group, yes, I'd say that that's true.
The legislation we passed about ten weeks ago in the
Senate that included Ukraine aid for the Western Pacific, which
is along with China and Israel and you humanitarianate. That
piece of legislation went over there to the Speaker's desk.
It's been sitting there. The easiest way to do this

(21:08):
is for him to bring that to the floor, because
it does have bipartisan support, it would get publican votes.
He can send it to the President. He's made this
other decision to break it up into pieces helps his
Republican members to not have to vote on something that
includes Ukraine aid when they don't want to do this.
They'll pass that with mostly Democrats and some Republicans. Then

(21:28):
they will put it all back together. So it's like
taking the jigsaw puzzle, break into the part, voting on
the pieces, and then putting the pieces back together, sending
it over here, and then we could pass it as
one piece of legislation. That's the current plan. You're right,
there are a lot of Republicans in the House that
unfortunately are missing the big picture here on Ukraine. Some

(21:52):
of them, unfortunately, are starting to use some of Russia's
talking points on this. I think they're unclear where the
former president and is on aid to Ukraine. He is
very specific about it. That gives them some level of apprehension.
The bottom line here is if we don't give Ukraine
the ammunition they need to be successful, they will lose.

(22:15):
When they lose, I'm convinced that Vladimir Putin will set
his sights ultimately on another target, and if that's a
NATO country, then we will be involved in direct combat
operations with Russia, and we don't want that.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
Michael McCall, Republican in the House who I'm sure you
now and said that he had seen members of his
parties spout in Russian propaganda.

Speaker 2 (22:39):
That struck me.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
And there was another Republican too who said that, and
I'm wondering what you think about that. And also are
huge shops that this problem is so bad that Republicans
are breaking ranks to talk about it.

Speaker 5 (22:53):
I've seen even some of my colleagues in the Senate
news phrases that you know clearly is you know earlier,
you know came from somebody in Russia. I've seen that,
and that's disappointing, and I'm not sure they necessarily know
that where it came from. My hope is as we
continue to debate, you know, these issues, they would see that,

(23:13):
you know, the right thing to do for the future
of our own country is to support Ukraine. And by
the way, as we give Ukraine the security assistance it needs,
which is largely munitions. It's artillery shells, I Mars rounds,
Patriot you know rounds, and other equipment, it allows us

(23:34):
to replenish our own munition stores with news new equipment.
So it's a positive thing for for us too. And
not all Republicans, I mean, especially in the Senate, I
mean my Senate Republican colleagues feel as strongly about many
of them, most of them as supporting Ukraine as I do,
and I mean they're very frustrated frustrated as well about

(23:57):
what's going on in the House. Our hope here is
the House figures out how to do what they're currently
planning on doing, which is breaking us up, voting on
the pieces, putting it back together, sending it over to us,
and we can get this done, this knocked off here
in the next couple of days or early next week.

Speaker 1 (24:13):
I mean, what I think is so interesting about this
scorna is it's Taiwan, it's Ukraine, and it's also Israel.

Speaker 5 (24:24):
There's another piece of this that includes REPO, which is
you know, the way we could, if it passed, take
the frozen Russian assets that are here, oh yeah, in Europe.
We could use that to provide Ukraine with munitions or
for a rebuilding effort. There's also the TikTok bill that

(24:45):
passes is part of this. There's a fentanyl provision. There
are a couple other things that may or may not.
The negotiation is still going on. What there would be
that would be a separate piece of legislation that would
have all those specific items, and then there would be
another thing for Israel, another one for Ukraine, another one

(25:05):
for into pay Com, which is Taiwan.

Speaker 1 (25:08):
I mean, you have a national security background besides being
a cool astronaut. Do you you think the TikTok ban?
I mean, do you think that happens, and do you
think it's necessary?

Speaker 5 (25:19):
Well, if they pass it in the House and they
send it over as one big piece of legislation with
it in there, we could be in a situation where
it would be hard for us to amend it and
send it back over because of the challenges the speaker
is having in getting the votes and the process he's
having to take to you know, my wife's wife. He said,
tell me, you don't want to see how the sausage

(25:40):
is made. This is the making of the sausage. So
I think we could wind up in a situation where
we have to vote on it.

Speaker 4 (25:45):
It's a tough issue.

Speaker 5 (25:46):
I mean, you're balancing the rights of Americans to get
their information where they want to get it from the
First Amendment rights issue. We also have to understand, especially
for a lot of young people, they get their new
they get most of their relevant, you know, important information,
they get it from TikTok. Would we allow a Chinese

(26:07):
company to come to the United States and buy let's say,
one hundred TV stations or one hundred million. The answer
is no, we would not allow that. Where I sit
on the Intelligence Committee, we talk about this issue a lot.
I do have concerns about the Chinese government using this
platform at some point to attempt to manipulate the American public.

(26:30):
That's a real threat. So we're continuing to discuss it.
It's kind of interesting. I've been asking a lot of
young people about this, teenagers, you know, high school kids,
kids in college about TikTok, if they use it, how
they would feel if it couldn't be sold and it
was shut down in the United States. It's pretty interesting.
Even among a lot of folks that use it and

(26:52):
use it routinely, most of them, I would say upwards
of eighty percent do not have a huge problem with
their being changes and possibly even at being unavailable. That
surprised me.

Speaker 1 (27:03):
That is really spressed here. You could also force the sale, right, well.

Speaker 5 (27:09):
That's what the legislation that the House had passed said.
You know how it would have to be sold in
six months.

Speaker 3 (27:16):
That if it was a.

Speaker 5 (27:16):
Sold then it would not be available on app stores,
and so we made the use what they're planning on
sending over to us.

Speaker 4 (27:24):
I think it extends that to a year, and there's
some other changes in it.

Speaker 1 (27:27):
You know, when you think about what a big deal
it is to have China control the flow of information
to everyone under the age of thirty, I mean that's
a pretty big deal. It is a concern, yes, yeah,
TikTok people have started lobbying.

Speaker 5 (27:42):
Yeah, I mean, and we've gotten a lot of calls
about it. And you know they did on TikTok ask
a huge number of people to reach out to us
to lobby for it.

Speaker 4 (27:52):
And by the way, I don't think it's available in
China and India. Bandit.

Speaker 1 (27:56):
It's a different algorithm that makes people smarter and less insane, right,
I Mean what is so interesting to me is like
we've had so little back regulation when you think about Facebook,
like there's so much opportunity for regulation.

Speaker 2 (28:11):
Are you surprised we haven't had more?

Speaker 5 (28:12):
Congress should have acted on legislation on social media a
decade a but go, and it's something we talk about
a lot here. We're trying to do something productive on it.
I mean, there are a lot of issues, especially with
young people with teenagers around the amount of time they
spend on social media about how they I mean psychological
issues on how people are affected in Congress, like on

(28:34):
other things, Congress has failed on this issue.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
Do you think that there can be greater regulation now
for technology?

Speaker 2 (28:41):
Is there an appetite in Condre There is?

Speaker 4 (28:45):
I mean, and it's something you know that.

Speaker 5 (28:47):
I mean, we discuss it a lot, and there are
bills that are moving forward often, this legislation takes a
lot longer than I would hope. It's a long process,
especially in the Senate. I mean the rules of the
Senate that make things just take a long time. If
NASA had the rules of the United States Senate, the
rocket ship would never leave the launch beat.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
This is like a very bad map for Democrats the
Senate out But these Kuboky candidates seem really bad. I mean,
are you hopeful and if so, you know, I know
our listeners would love to know sort of what races
you're watching that you're sort of the most hopeful about or.

Speaker 5 (29:27):
That you feel needs to bord We've got great candidates
running for reelection and for open seats like in Arizona,
in Michigan. You know, Lissa slock In in Michigan, Ruben
Diego and Arizona are experienced, are smart now the right background.
Rubens a marine, Alyssa Slockins a former CIA agent.

Speaker 4 (29:49):
These are you know, currently open seats.

Speaker 5 (29:50):
You talk about Texas, we have an opportunity Florida, Texas.
Colin alrhtt is running against Ted Cruz. These civil rights attorney,
Member of the House former I think he was a
linebacker for the Tennessee Titans. Great guy, They're working really hard.
Then you look at the Democrats that are running for reelection,
John Tester and Montana, Jackie Rosen in Nevada, Tammy Baldwin

(30:12):
in Wisconsin, Sheared Brown in Ohio, Bob Casey in Pennsylvania.
Very effective legislators, great leaders who've worked really, really hard
with a lot of grassroots support, and a lot of
them happen to be running against just ury wealthy opponents
that were recruited because they have a big bank roll.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
Yeah, no, it's so interesting. Thank you so much, Senator.

Speaker 4 (30:35):
Well you're welcome. Thank you for inviting me on your ship.

Speaker 1 (30:40):
Congressman Dan Goleman represents New York's tenth district.

Speaker 2 (30:45):
Welcome to fast politics. Congressman Goldman, thanks so much for
havingy Mollik.

Speaker 3 (30:49):
Great to be with you.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
A lot of excitement, and by excitement, i'm me. And
what even is happening in Congress right now?

Speaker 4 (30:56):
Well, we are seeing a clash of two wings of
the Republican Party. The one wing is the one controlled
by Trump and the Maga Republicans, who really don't want
to govern, do not want to do anything that would
help the American people, do not really believe in democracy,

(31:19):
and they're therefore pretty content with supporting Vladimir Putin. I
call this the Putin wing of the Republican Party.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
So let's just.

Speaker 1 (31:28):
Talk for a second about what's happening right now with
the supplemental that needs to get through the House. The
last reporting I read involved these kind of Freedom Caucus
people setting up a group with the acronym fart.

Speaker 4 (31:47):
Yeah, you know, it's pretty appropriate. It appears that they
wouldn't think about what the acronym is, or maybe they did.
It's appropriate either way. There's a civil war that's more
or less than resolved in the republic Can Party that
Donald Trump has won and the Maga Republicans have won,
and it is anti democratic, it is isolationists, and it

(32:08):
is really designed to uproot, up end, and overturn all
of our democratic values and institutions. That has been the
thread that has kept the Speaker from actually putting Ukraine
eight on the floor, even though probably three hundred of
the four hundred and thirty five members of the House

(32:29):
support Ukraine eight, and he does finally, with the benefit
of the highest level of intelligence briefings that he gets
as part of the Gang of Eight, understands the dire
need that Ukraine has for our assistance and what the
impact would be if Ukraine doesn't get that aid and

(32:51):
if Vladimir Putin were to be able to conquer Ukraine,
and then unquestionably he would continue on his march to
take over Poland, yeah, or any of the former Soviet states.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
Basically, right now there's machinations about Republicans trying to get
rid of the motion to vacate to protect Johnson or now.

Speaker 4 (33:17):
My understanding is the latest information is that they will
not change the rules. But what the Speaker has done
is because the rules allow for one person like Marjorie
Taylor Green to completely grind Congress to a halt because
of this motion to vacate there's outsized influence for each

(33:39):
individual member, especially in the Republican Party. And the Speaker
appears to be moving forward with this supplemental and it
is almost identical to the Senate Eate. There may be
an additional fourth bill that adds in some other pieces
of legislation in addition to the Senate ad, but none

(33:59):
that seemed to be especially controversial. And he finally decided
that he was going to do the right thing by Ukraine,
by democracy, by the United States, rather than cater to
the extremeist wing of his party. And he seems willing
to take the consequences, whatever they may be. And I
have to say that I did not expect this from him,

(34:21):
and I have to applaud him or bucking the arsonists
on the right and doing what is the right thing
in putting this bill on the floor.

Speaker 1 (34:31):
But you have to wonder what he must have seen
in those intelligence briefings that changed his mind. Right, Like,
remember he was like number five or six in Republican leadership.
I mean, the guy was barely sort of on the
radar when he was so trumpy. I mean, someone must
have showed him something that convinced him.

Speaker 4 (34:52):
Right, Well, we've all gotten some level of classified briefings,
not with the detail and level that he would receive,
and it is very parent without getting into any classified information,
that Ukraine is on the brink right now and they're
out of ammunition, they're out of materiel, they're out of
military equipment, and they cannot withstand Russia if they do

(35:14):
not get some urgently and immediately. And I think what
listening to him, what really does seem to have finally
gotten through, is that he realizes that this would be
the beginning of Vladimir Putin's march, not the end of it.
And so sixty billion dollars now in military support, eighty

(35:37):
percent of which by the way, goes to US companies
defense companies to restore and restock are arsenal. So it
is also beneficial for the economy, putting aside whatever you
may think about the defense industrial complex. But he realized
is that this would be the beginning and the next
thing that would happen is that Putin would invade another country,

(36:00):
probably a NATO country, that would then require US to
send troops. And so a sixty billion dollar investment right
now that could prevent American troops from going there and
hundreds of billions of dollars spent on a future war
is a smart investment, and that seems to finally have
resonated with him.

Speaker 1 (36:21):
So let's talk about what's happening in New York, because
you know this New York DA's office, they are zipping
through picking a jury. I want you to talk about
what your take is. I mean, you have seen so
many of these cases. What do you think about what
you're seeing here? And also how it's affecting Trump.

Speaker 4 (36:44):
I've always eagerly awaited Donald Trump being in a courtroom
because he has no control in a courtroom. Politics and
partisanship do not matter. Misinformation, disinformation and outright lies are
not accepted and not permit. And the rules are the
rules that apply to everyone, including him, and he generally

(37:06):
is someone who believes the rules don't apply to him,
which is part of the reason why he has for
indictments against him. And so, you know, seeing him or
hearing about him sitting there watching the jury selection, falling asleep,
I guess he's too old to be president, falling asleep
at his own criminal trial. All of the pomp and

(37:27):
circumstances and bluster and press conferences and all the partisanship
and all the politicization that he brings to everything that
he does goes out the window. When you get into
a court of law, the facts will matter, the evidence
will matter, and the law will matter, and that's it.
It will be very interesting to see. I was incredibly
disheartened to read that at least one juror perhaps there

(37:48):
are others, begged off of the jury because of fear
for his or her own safety. And I will tell
you I've done a number of trials as a prosecutor.
I picked a lot of juries.

Speaker 6 (38:02):
I did a double murder racketeering trial against the boss
of the Genevez crime family and two other associates of
the genevie'z crime family, one of whom ultimately killed Whitey
Bulger in jail.

Speaker 3 (38:17):
And I never have heard of a.

Speaker 4 (38:20):
Juror genuinely fearing for his or her safety. It can happen.
But the notion that Donald Trump would invoke such fear
because of his incitement of violence, because of what he
did on January sixth, because of the domestic violent extremists

(38:40):
who he uses as his threatth is a reflection of
something really rotten. When you start hearing about members in
the Senate, as Mitt Romney said, who changed their vote
because they're worried about their own safety. You start to
realize that this person is a danger far beyond just

(39:02):
to our democracy, to our norms, but is actually a
danger to individual safety. And that was really disheartening to read.

Speaker 1 (39:13):
What I'm struck by when we read the reporting out
of this courtroom is that there's just a lot of
kind of mafia like tactics that Trump uses, right, a
lot of intimidation stuff and trying to find out if.

Speaker 2 (39:26):
These jurors are biased.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
I loved when Trump was like, we should move this
trial to staten Holland what I'm struck by is just
that he has to like sit there for so many hours,
and that he's never just had to sit somewhere, and
he can't play with his phone, I mean, and that
I think is probably why he keeps falling asleep right now.

Speaker 4 (39:46):
That means seventy seven years old, I don't know, but yeah,
That's sort of the point. Is that this persona that
Donald Trump has created that started with the Apprentice and
worked his way all way up to the presidency, and
now he has this maga cult that listens to its
every word, even though he lies right, left and center,

(40:08):
all of that is gone. He is defendant Donald Trump,
and that's all that he is. And he's sitting there
at a table in the courtroom, just like every other
defendant does, going through the same process that every other
defendant does. And I actually think that is incredibly important.

(40:30):
It is incredibly important for the American people to see
that our rule of law, our criminal justice system, applies
equally to every single person in this country, regardless of
whether you are a former president or not. And he
has the same rules, the same laws, the same procedures
as anyone else does. And that is the foundation of

(40:52):
our country. And I think it's really really important that
the American people watch that happening. Thank you, Congressman, No problem,
take care, no moment.

Speaker 7 (41:05):
Jesse Cannon, Molly jung Fest. I once read a history
of the mob in New York at every hour of
the day, scenes from it just flashed through my head
during this Trump trial.

Speaker 1 (41:16):
So Fox News hosts Jesse Waters, I mean, they're just
doing everything they can to try to intimidate these jurors
into getting Trump off. He broadcasted extensive biographical details about
jural Number two, her neighborhood, her occupation, education, marital and
familial status, and what industry her fiance works in. He
concluded by saying, I'm not cho sure about juror number two.

(41:40):
By the way, this is such an insane way for
a television host to act.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
I mean, this is one.

Speaker 1 (41:47):
Of the most insane things I've seen that Fox do,
and it is insane even for Fox. Jesse Waters is
our moment of fuck Ray. That's it for this episode
of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday
to hear the best minds in politics makes sense of
all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please

(42:10):
send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
And again, thanks for listening.
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