May 1, 2025 • 51 mins
The Weeknight host Symone Sanders-Townsend skewers Trump’s first 100 days and the lies he’s trying to spin around them. Personhood author Mary Ziegler details her powerful new book on reproductive rights.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds and Democrats win landslide in safe Iowa
State House seat. We have such a great show for
you today. The weeknight host Simone Sanders Towns and stops
(00:21):
by to talk to us about Trump's first one hundred
days of lies. Then we will talk to Personhood author
Mary Ziegler about her amazing new book on reproductive rights.
But first the news Somali.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
We throughout our time mister Trump being in our lives,
have seen him do a lot of wacky interviews.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
I love when you call him mister Trump.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I do it with the utmost contempt. Anyway, last night,
though he decided to go I want to say the
full Trump laid down the Trump card, just really leaded
into all his worst instincts and uh, why don't I
play you what many people are saying?
Speaker 1 (01:05):
To use his own words, many, many, many.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
One of his worst moments of an interview, which is
really really saying something a member of the gang.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
And then they look at on his stoles.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
He had then.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
He had on his he had some tattoos that are
interpreted that way.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
But let's move on.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Wait a minute, I will tear it.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
He did not have the letter M S one.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
This is MS one.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
That was photoshop. Uh so let me do this.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Photoshops had that.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Hey, they're giving you the big break of a lifetime.
You know you're joined the interview.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
I picked you because, frankly, I never heard of the
invidenia to you, and begin of being very nice, he had.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Thirteen agree to disagree. I'll move on to something else.
Do you want to show you the picture? I saw
the picture.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Well, I've dealt with less belligerent people after doing forty
fireball shots.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
I'm sorry, but I picked you even though I had
never heard of you.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
What of the old type of grades.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
I love that so much. What he was like, I
picked you. I never heard of you, but I picked you.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
I have a feeling you said that on a lot
of first dates.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
I'm telling you, I love it so much. Look, we
have an administration where not just one person has a
warm in his brain. I don't know what to tell you.
I picked you a major career. Again, I've said this before,
I will say it again. Trump is doing a lot
of media. This is the right thing to do if
(02:40):
Democrats ever get back in power. We need Democrats to
do a lot of media. I'm sorry to tell everyone
here that is all I have, but I am correct.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yeah, I agree, so molly, mister Trump also received.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Some very when you call him, mister Trump.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Go on, yes, very very very very bad economic news today.
As you turned to me, you said that we are
now in a recession. Well, he had a tweet that
really really was chef's kiss.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
This is Biden's stock market, not Trump's. I didn't take
over until January twentieth. By the way, let me just
tell you what day it is for those keeping track
at home. It is April thirtieth. Okay, So he has
been president for a little more than one hundred days,
which is a little more than three months. Okay, I
(03:32):
just want to point this out. And then, by the way,
this is I think really important. Tariffs will start kicking in.
Tariffs are kicking in. That's why the economy is shrinking,
is because tariffs are making things more expensive and they're
keeping people from keeping businesses from expanding. So tariffs are
kicking in. They won't start kicking in. They are kicking in,
(03:54):
and companies are starting to move into the US and
record numbers. Now that I think is probably just made up.
Our country will boom, but we have to get rid
of Biden's overhang. Okay, this will take a while. Has
nothing to do with tariffs. Again, you can put it
in all caps. But it's not right. He left us
(04:14):
with bad numbers. That's not true. We know that the
Biden economy was the envy of the world, but when
the boom begins, it will be like no other. Be
patient explanation point. Here's the thing. I just want to
say this really important stuff here. Tariffs are bad. Trump
things are good. They are keeping a lot of businesses
(04:37):
from spending money. But also it's not just the tariffs,
it's the instability. Trump is always back and forth. You know,
the tariffs are on, they're off, they're this, they're that,
and there's a lot of worry. If you're going to
build a factory, say you're a pants manufacturer. You manufacture
in China. You decide to build a factory in the
(04:58):
United States because you're worried about tariff, and you're worried
about the one hundred and fifty percent tariff on Chinese manufacturing.
So you decide to build a factory in Iowa. Now,
the way these tariffs work, some of the tariffs actually
punish you for bringing in things that are made in
other countries to manufacture. So even if you're manufacturing, you're
(05:23):
still paying China tariffs. I mean, they're just endless sort
of unforeseen consequences to these TIFFs because they're radical, radical
departures in the way America does business. And look, this
is all this Trump plan to reshore manufacturing, and that
is a long term play restoring manufacturing, and there is
(05:48):
really no handbook for it, and it would take a
long time. And so this is why this is so stupid.
And it looks like Trump is really dug in on
the terror and we're going to feel a lot more
economic pain. Also, remember tariffs were responsible for smooth Hollie,
one of the reasons why we went into the Great Depression.
(06:10):
You know, there's no world in which tips are good
for the stock market.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
I am with you, you know what, there is also
no good for the country or anyone's confidence. Psychotic press conferences.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
I consider them to be like the North Korea, like
a little bit of North Korea.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
I think this really was the week that we got
the most Korean culture since k pop landed on our shores,
right exactly, And yes, people.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
I know that's South Korea, Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Anyway, let me pull you some clips from this absolutely
bonkers press conference, and I'm going to skip the one
where RFK says, the more four eyed you have, the
stupider you get, not doing business.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
They made a trillion dollars when you good buying a
treation dollars, even a Tritian one. I'm selling us stuff,
much of it we don't need, you know. Somebody said,
all the sholves that are going to be opened, well
maybe the children will have two dollars instead of thirty dollars,
you know, and maybe the two dolls will cost a
couple of months more than they would normally. But we're
(07:15):
not talking about something that we have to go out
of our way.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
They have ships that.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Are loaded up with stuff, much of which not all
of it, but much of which we don't need.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
At Donald Trump, to end conspicuous consumption, congratulations, Americans are
buying too much stuff. Let's stop, and this is why
our economy is shrinking. I don't think Trump understands that
consumer spending will mean less consumer spending which will mean
(07:45):
an economy the drinks, which means that it's not just
about having two dollars or five dollars, it's about having
twenty jobs or four jobs. And Donald Trump again, it's like,
what is so amazing about Trump and this has been
true for him this entire time, is that he never
is able to sink through what things will mean in
(08:08):
the unintended consequences of things, and so you find him
thinking it's about dolls and not that you know, consumer
spending drives the economy and is an engine of the economy.
And again this is their argument with immigration, right, you
have a tight labor market to try to get people
to have babies. They don't want to have babies, and
(08:29):
you're kicking out immigrants, like, here's the deal man, you
got to get those people from somewhere.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yeah, well, the craziness doesn't stop. Here's Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
We've recinded death penalty.
Speaker 5 (08:42):
We are now seeking the death penalty on cases. I'm
signing dug warrance. We are going after tear, we are
going after arsonist, whether you're burning teslas. We will be
arrested nine people so far in seven jurisdictions, no negotiations,
twenty years.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
And she's citing death warrants.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
For people burning Tesla's. That seems like a mistake.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
I think she kind of meant to say that it's
for the people doing fens at all, but it really
read that way, and I hope it's not the case.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Personally, I don't think it's good to kill people, especially
for cars, for burning cars. But you know, the thing
about Tesla that's so interesting, besides the fact that this
administration is completely unhinged, is that you saw last week
Elon Musk hit an arnings call seventy one percent drop
(09:38):
in Tesla's earnings. Elon said that, actually, Tesla's not the
play anymore. It's these autonomous driving cars. Waimo is eating
his lunch with the autonomous cars, right, so it's not
going to be autonomous cars. So much of Elon's empires
based on SpaceX and the satellites and the communication arm
(10:04):
of it. Elon has really backed himself into a corner here,
and his embrace of MAGA has really hurt his companies.
And I'll be curious, you know, he said he would
step back. I don't believe anything that anyone says, especially
out of the admin. But it'll be interesting to see
if he hits a moment work shareholders are like, this
(10:27):
is enough. Simone Sanders. Townsend is the co host of
the Weeknight along with Michael Steele and Alicia Menendez. Eric
Monday is from seven to nine pm Tuesdays through Fridays
(10:50):
seven to eight Eastern on MSNBC and in Premiers Monday,
May fifth. Hi, I'm so excited to have you. Welcome
to Fast Politics, Samon.
Speaker 5 (11:02):
I'm happy to be here at Fast Politics. Mollie.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Let's talk about where we are right now. One hundred
little more than one hundred days. Oh, Mollie, you were
listening to Trump's pressor he has now crashed the economy.
How edgedy is he about having crashed the economy?
Speaker 5 (11:20):
You know, don't believe he crashed the economy. I say
it was a press conference. He was taking questions at
the cabinet meeting, which is something you know usually he
has a lot of cadem meetings where he likes to
come in and pray and take questions. I'm wondering how
much work gets done at the cabinet meeting, give all
the t and a that has happened, but he does
not believe that he's crashed the economy. I say that
because of what he said. He said, we're doing really well.
(11:42):
The teriffs haven't even all the way been implemented, but
we've gotten our numbers down. I'm using quotes about what
we pay when it comes to other countries for tariffs,
and I just cannot stress to people enough that a
tariff is a tax and the people are paying the tax.
And when other countries eliminate tariffs on us, meaning in
(12:04):
the United States, that does nothing to help the United
States economy. What it does cripple the economy of the
home country because they have a tariff because we're I mean,
look some things we just don't make in America, folks.
There is not enough coffee in Puerto Rico and Hawaii
to sustain American's coffee habits. Okay, more importantly, yes, it's
(12:25):
just it just doesn't happen. So, yeah, we've got a
trade deficit, if you will, with countries that make more coffee,
for example, because we're importing a lot of coffee. And
there's nothing wrong with that. But Donald Trump, I believe
Miley is just banking on people just not knowing general
economics and not thinking enough to care to google. He
told lies about how much money the United States that's
(12:45):
sent to Ukraine. It was just really crazy. But I
listen because it's important for us all to be informed.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
So I want to talk to you about something really
important which I have noticed about Don Trump's beening office
one hundred days. This man is doing interviews almost every day.
He is doing interviews, he's doing television, he's doing Time magazine,
he's doing pressors. He's doing these North Korean style televised
(13:11):
cabinet meetings where everyone goes around the room and talks
about how great he is, and he takes questions during them.
And this is in no way a compliment of Donald Trump.
And this is a real question to you because you're
smart and also because you're honest. Do you think there's
a lesson to be learned here for Democrats about this
media accessibility? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (13:32):
Little?
Speaker 1 (13:33):
So.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
First, you know, I think, is how secret what Donald
tup does well? Is he is a master marketer. You know,
whether he is telling the truth when he's doing this
marketing is another question. But I think it is a
valid thing to point out that, you know, he's a
good marketer. That's how he made a lot of his money.
That's how he fashioned himself for years as the apprentice,
(13:54):
you know what I mean. So people believe that he
is a good businessman because he marketed himself as such,
an because the numbers bored that out, and so there
is a letton to take there. Look a lot of
around one hundred days. I mean, what he has done
in the last couple of days, I believe is very
standard to past presidents. At one hundred day mark, you
do have you would usually have one hundred day interview
(14:14):
or two that drop. You will go and do a
big event to mark your one hundred days. He did
that in Michigan. You would have maybe a television interview
or two to drop. He did one on Fox and
then obviously he's now taking questions at the cabinet meeting.
He could have also, you know, a president previously might
have been a press conference. The level of accessibility that
the president is offering I do think is important past presidents,
(14:37):
but I think people would compare this to President Biden
did not was not as accessible, if you will, in
terms of wanting to do interviews. He didn't want to.
And now I think if you talk to a lot
of White House reporters, they would say, well, he didn't
do the interviews because he couldn't. And I, you know,
stand firmly that it is not that he couldn't, it's
that he did not want to. But it seems like
a distin distinction without a difference. But given some of
(14:58):
the things that we know are come down the pipeline
in terms of some of these books that are coming
out about by an administration, I do think is a
distinction that is quite.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
As important to mention.
Speaker 5 (15:07):
Yeah, but you know, yes, Donald Trump is very accessible. Absolutely,
I think that that's important. I think if you want
to get your message out, the best way to help
shape what people are saying about your message is in fact,
to talk to them. It's to tell them what your
message is. I think the biggest difference soul between Donald
Trump and everyone else is literally the man could say
I landed on the moon yesterday and they will move
(15:28):
on to the next question. And you know, I've worked
for candidates who are running for president. I worked for
a president and a vice president while they're in office.
That's just not usually how it works. I mean, the
benefit of the doubt that Donald Trump is afforded oftentimes
in these back and forth settings is insane. And I
think that it's one thing to be Accessibility is important,
(15:50):
but what you say when you are accessible should also matter.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
In my opinion, oh one hundred percent. But I do
think there's more. Let's talk about Biden for a minute,
because you and I.
Speaker 5 (15:59):
I both What do you think, Molly? What do you think?
Speaker 1 (16:02):
This is why I love you? There are these books
that say whatever. I do not believe that getting old
is a conspiracy. I believe getting old is getting old.
As someone who has a mother who has actual dementia
and a father who is just getting old, I actually
know that getting old is just getting old. And the
(16:24):
ways we feel about getting old are a lot about
ourselves and not so much about conspiracies. So I have
been really impressed with just how sleazy I think a
lot of this is. And by the way, I still
there is no one with all these books. And again,
maybe there's something that will come out, but you know,
(16:45):
everything I've read so far makes me think that it
was a guy getting older.
Speaker 5 (16:50):
Look, I obviously did not work in the White House
with the President the last you know, two three years.
What I know about Joe Biden for what I saw
for my own two eyes, and I mean I saw
him about a week before inauguration. I was at the
White House. I had a conversation with him, We spent
some time together. I think the cognitive decline self is
a bunch of bs. I really do. I think that
there is a distinction between one being getting older in
(17:14):
age and legitimately having a cognitive decline that there is
something wrong with you up there. And I do not
think the president President Biden was suffering from a cognitive decline.
Now that being said, could you say that maybe he
was in denial about the political reality of the situation.
I think you can ask personally say that, Yeah, if
we say he's in denial, then we have to ask, well,
(17:34):
how did that come to be? Who were some of
the people around him saying some of the things to him?
But then that takes us to a deeper level, and
that means some other individuals had to take some accountability
for the advice, if you will, and counsel that they
gave the president, and that's, you know, kind of hard
to do. One could argue they don't want to do that,
So it's very easier to just say, oh, blame Joe.
(17:55):
I just you know, I think two things can be
true at the same time. Was the President older? Absolutely? Also,
I mean, well, we'll have to hear from Joe Biden
on this, and I hope that he does decide to
come out and say a little something. But knowing what
I know about him, I believe one thousand percent that
what was happening with Hunter and the target, that the
Department of Justice and the Donald Trump and all this ally,
(18:17):
all of the Trump, the President, president Trump's allies had
on Hunter Biden specifically, I have to believe that that
weighed on the President in an immense way that I
do not believe he's adequately or he's articulated to us. Now,
what happened to that debate, Molly, I don't know. The
streets say the President was sick, and I'm like, okay,
(18:38):
if he's sick, y'all probably should have said that before
the debate, not in the middle, and not after. But
then you see the President go out on stage, President
Biden with the then first Lady, doctor Joe Biden, and
doctor Biden says, you did great, and then and the
President gives a very rousing speech post debate to a
crowd of folks and people are like, well, where was
this man twenty minutes? And then he goes to what
(18:59):
was it a wall house, and the reporters that are
following him in the pool ask him, you know, how
does he think he did? From outside look at him
as the president? It was kind of not great. And
Joe Biden, you know, it's kind of hard to debate
a bully. No no, no, no, no, no no no no.
That to me goes back to the advice and the
counsel of the advisors, because I'd had to give advice
and counsel before. And you have to be willing to
(19:20):
tell the principle the hard thing. You don't want to crush,
you know, their morale. But I mean, if you come
off of stage and you sucked, you gotta be willing
to tell the principle that, sir, the end, you ended
stronger than you started. The beginning was rocky, and frankly,
we are being lambasted on social and in the press
(19:41):
giving your performance, and then we have to talk about
a strategy. But I don't believe that that moment happened
with President Biden. And I think there are many instances
where the folks whose job it was to tell the
president the truth, okay, they were not telling him the truth.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Yeah, I think that's right. I also think part of
problem here, and I think this is a real problem
with democratic politics. I'm going to tell you a story
and you tell me what you think. So there is
this question of who will be the ranking member on oversight.
This gets me very agitated. I had a chance to
elevate someone young with a bigger profile. Could have been AOC,
(20:19):
could have been Jasmine Cracker, could have been Max well Frost.
They'll probably not chance to elevate someone who has actually
an ability to shine the spotlight on things right. Instead,
they decide to elevate Jerry.
Speaker 5 (20:36):
Connolly that day. Let's be specific, good old speaker hearts
on Nancy Pelosi.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Right. I think there's a straight line between elevating Jerry
Connolly and Democrats not doing well in polls. Discuss yes
and no.
Speaker 5 (20:52):
First of all, everybody has had a lot to say
over the last couple of days in terms of the
one hundred day polling around prevent Trump, and I always
people their polls are a snapshot in time, so you
cannot put all this stock in the polls when you
like them, and then when you don't like the polls,
it's like, oh, Poles, I'm at it. So I hope
this and is saying they're a snapshot, So sure, the
snapshot is saying right now that Americans don't like what
(21:14):
is happening in the first one hundred days, but we're
gonna remain to be seen. They don't like it, yet
there's still people who support the president saying I don't
like it, but I support the president.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Yeah, got it. Disappear more grad students because that don't
really help his poem.
Speaker 5 (21:27):
Oh, because that's what the American people want, and fringe
love the process. They love that, they love lawlessness, feeling
like they live in a third world dictatorship. That'll get them, yeah,
I think. And first, you know, obviously, since Congressman Conley
has been elevated, he has now said he's going to
not only step back from the committee, but also not
run for re election for Congress because his cancer has
come back and he is a great public servant, he
(21:49):
has served honorably and like many blessings and sending good
prayers to him and his family. Correct, And I do
though think that allowing and I mean it spinning Pelosi,
who is not currently the speaker, still wields a lot
of power and there are a lot of people that
are very much so still allied with her within the
ranks of the congressional Democrats on the hill in the House.
(22:11):
I do think frankly, it was a mistake. I do.
And it's not just about newer, younger people. It is
about understanding and putting together a strategy and putting the
people in place that is needed for time such as this,
and in my opinion, with Democrats need to demonstrate because
they are the minority, because there's little they can do
to affect what is happening. Sands withhold their votes for
(22:33):
a budget right or that ceiling which is coming up.
Is demonstrate some fight that shows up in how you campaign,
but also how you ask questions in your committee hearings,
where you go, what you say, how you show up
on television, and in this day and age, I think
democratic elected officials need to put forward the people in
the spaces and places that can demonstrate the fight and
(22:55):
have the strategy there. So I think some of the
polling is just supposed with not just this particular not
lack of elevation of newer, younger members and the cementing
of someone who is a more seasoned member. I think
that polling is indicative of the fact that in the
first couple weeks when Donald Trump was inaugurated, this second time,
(23:16):
Democrats is just like, it ain't nothing we can do.
Oh oh, we're large. There were a couple of people,
the Democratic governors ready to fight. Democratic attorney generals literally
had a plan. Democratic members of Conference and leadership was
just kind of like they got caught flat footed, like
they haven't known since November that Donald Trump was about
to be president. And as someone that worked in Democratic politics,
(23:37):
you know, for the entire first part of my professional life,
for someone who grew up and worked for and advocated
for the Democratic Party apparatus, I was definitely disappointed. And frankly,
I think that if Democrats did not start to demonstrate
some fight, there would not have been an argument to
make for why they should be able to take back
the House next year. But I do think what we've
(23:58):
seen since that time is there's been some trial and error.
Some of it has worked out, some of it hasn't,
But the American people are at least seeing that there
are members of Congress disproportionately Democrats and like three Republicans
who are willing to stand up to the President, for
their constituents, for what is right, for what is the law,
(24:20):
and that will matter to voters come twenty twenty six.
The last thing I'll say, Maley is I think that
Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, and the Republican Party apparatus read large,
they are seeing the same you know, they know the
same things I just said that you and I know
to be true. They're seeing the same polling, They're seeing
the energy that the opposition is fired up. And I
(24:41):
do not believe that Steven Miller and Donald Trump are
just gonna go quietly into the night and let the
House slip through their fingers because of a little thing
called public sentiment, between the Save Act, between these executive
orders on voting, between what Republicans specifically in North Carolina
are doing right now to steal an election from Alison Riggs,
who was the duly elected member of the state Supreme
(25:03):
Court in November. She won that race, and they've done
everything in their power, the Republicans in that state, to
change the vote. Okay, I think they're waiting un till
twenty twenty eight to you know, implement a voter suppression strategy.
This is happening right now, and I do think that
people have to be vigilant and Democrats have to have
a plan. You can't out vote voter suppression. It don't
(25:23):
work like that.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Yeah, I think that's right. Let's talk about the CR.
I'm sorry, it's.
Speaker 5 (25:33):
Like, why do you keep this appointing me? What are
going on?
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Right? So let's talk about the CR. There's a CR.
It goes through Congress, it makes it through Congress, once
it's in the Senate. Democrats have their names on it.
It's hard. It's very hard to shut down the government.
Speaker 5 (25:49):
I don't think so at all.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Okay, so let's talk about that. So what do you
think should have happened? And what do you think? Talk
to me?
Speaker 5 (25:55):
So, first of all, I understand the argument of well,
if if we shut down, if we allow the government
to shut down, then it is the executive branch that
decides what things are, what functions are essential and non essential.
And if the government deems something essential, it continues to operate.
If you will, people don't get paid, they continue to operate.
(26:16):
If the government deeds being something not essential, it does
not continue to operate, and on top of that, you
don't get paid. So I upset that argument. But they're
doing it anyway right now. So I'm just kind of like, Okay,
our is there. You're a cool like, he's not doing
this right now. I could see. I could see if
the United if the federal government was not arbitrarily picking
(26:37):
and choosing what departments and agencies to shut down unconstitutionally
because they don't have to power to do so. I
can understand if they were not already doing that. But
they were already doing it. And so the argument that
Democrats were making are we don't want to show down
the government because there's no way for us to ever
get the government back open, and that is also not
a true argument. I think that people that needed to
(27:00):
see a fight, and frankly the same way that Donald
Trump is that are about face on these tariffs, signs
just sprun around. If I spent around in my chair,
put a pause on those chairs and ninety day palls
because people are like, this is too crazy. And the
public outcry was in saying Democrats would not have been
blamed for the government being shut out. It would be
Donald Trump and the Republicans' unwillingness to negotiate with their
(27:22):
Democratic counterparts. You have to be you have to stand
for something in the face of lawless tyranny. You cannot
roll over because of the procedure and process. And frankly,
that was like the only time in the foreseeable future
until it's a debt ceiling. And I think the debt
seiling is a very different fight because the debt ceiling
is about money that we already spent. It's not about
how money that is to be spent. Dead ceiling is
(27:44):
literally paying your credit card bill because you already spent
the money, so you now have to pay the bill.
It's like the ax every month that comes due. Honey.
Then I plan about said thirty days. This was the
opportunity to do something. The very little power that the
Democratic Party operat has had, the elected officials and Washington,
they squandered, at my opinion, that opportunity because there was
(28:04):
a strategic divide in terms of what Democrats, particularly in
the United States Senate thought was plausible. And frankly, Leader Schumer,
I mean, on Wednesday, the man is like we're fighting
and by Thursday, He's like, we must spawn the government,
we must do our due diligence. I'm like, I'm got whiplashed.
I don't know what is it?
Speaker 1 (28:23):
What happened? Simoan? I really appreciate you. You cracked me up,
but you're also correct, you know.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
But can we end on a hopeful note because I
think people hear like, well, dang, no hope. I believe
as I like to have my deal in my hand,
I believe that the people had the power. And if
don't believe that the people have the power, look at
what has happened in this country in this first one
hundred days. Down't stop put the palls on the tariffs
because people stood up, raised their voices, restored their discontent,
(28:54):
called their elected officials, and the elected officials called the
White House, Democrats and Republicans. People have really been in
the streets protesting every single day of this presc it works.
They tried to shut off the Medicaid portals in the
first like two weeks, and people's outcry made them turn
the portals back, going in and say it wasn't a
So the people do have the power. And when we
(29:16):
stand up, I know it doesn't feel it like we
do some days. I know it feels like dark and
hopeless some days, but truly we still live in the
United States of America. We still live in the You know,
this is the first multi racial democracy that has ever
been tried in the history of the world. We are
still in it. A segment of individuals, including the President
(29:37):
of the United States, would like it to turn us
into something else, but for now, we are still a
democratic republic and we have to fight for our democracy
as standing up and raising your voice, not rolling over,
asking questions why how can they do that? No, I
don't want this to happen, demanding that you're elected officials,
whether they are Democrats or Republicans, speak up. Don Bacon
of Nebraska is speaking up and out against people and
(29:59):
his party president for what is right, because he himself
knows it's correct to do, and his constituents have asked
him to do so. The people have the power.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Simone.
Speaker 5 (30:10):
Thank you, Molly. It's always a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Mary Ziegler is a legal historian and the author of Personhood,
The News, Civil War over Reproduction. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome.
Speaker 6 (30:23):
Mary, Thanks for having me Buck.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Mary Ziegler I think of you as like the smartest
person writing about the law and history right now, and
also very smart law professor. So talk to me about
this book and where you are right now.
Speaker 6 (30:44):
Yeah, I mean I wrote the book because after Dobbs,
I think there was a moment when I started to
have friends say, essentially, you know, what are you going
to do now that it's over? And I think they
meant it's over for conservatives. Obviously it was never over
for people who supported reproductive rights, who aren't going to
stop fighting. But I think they meant, what are you
going to do now that people on the right got
(31:05):
everything they wanted? And I thought, well, they didn't everything
they wanted. It's not over for them either, and things
can get a whole lot worse from the standpoint of
reproductive rights. And I think that's something I knew as
a historian that most people didn't have to know. So
I wrote the book really about how it was never
just about getting rid of row for people who oppose abortion,
(31:29):
and how what it is about, which is this idea
of fetal personhood could reshape, you know, the way people
experience pregnancy and reproduction in all kinds of ways that
I don't think we've been aware.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Of Yes, So this is like an obsession of mine
because I had seen the writing on the wall with
fetal personhood. So this book is called Personhood the New
Civil War over Reproduction, and it is I don't want
to be nice, but I want to explain how important
(32:02):
this is. It is the smartest thing conservatives have done.
So I want you to talk us through how we
went from basically heartbeat laws to a nagism person Yeah.
Speaker 6 (32:15):
Well, one of the things that I think people don't
realize about personhood is it was there the whole time, right.
So it's not new in the sense that these arguments
have been in kind of in the hopper waiting to.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Be brought out.
Speaker 6 (32:29):
They were developed. I think the initial personhood argument started
in the nineteen sixties and they've never really gone away.
A quick way to kind of find this is to
look at old Republican Party platforms. They were there the
whole time, right. So I think what's changed is the
willingness of anti abortion groups to say this openly now
(32:50):
that Roe is gone. I think a few things have changed.
I think one, there's not as much fear about offending
or pissing off voters.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
And two, I.
Speaker 6 (33:00):
Think there's a realization that the way to success really
is through the federal courts, who are willing to do
things that voters would not, And that means you can
make arguments about, for example, constitutional fetal rights requiring the
criminalization of abortion or severe limits on IBF that you
(33:21):
know voters would hate, because you're not talking to voters anymore.
So that transition has really been a visible since Stobs
part of this much longer again, like a campaign that's
been going on for over half a century.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Now, explain what that means. You're not accountable to voters anymore.
Speaker 6 (33:38):
Well, yeah, of course abortion opponents can be right, which
is one of the reasons why we're seeing i think
a little bit of slow walking from the Trump administration.
We still obviously we're not that deep into the Trump administration.
We could still see national limits on abortion, but we
have seen Trump roll out one thing after another very
very quickly, and not as quickly it comes to abortion.
(34:00):
So Republicans are still accountable to voters, but anti abortion
groups are relying less on Republicans who still have to
run competitive races, and relying more and advancing personhood on
people who don't so think the justices on the Supreme
Court think other federal judges think state Supreme Court judges
who either don't face election or have tremendous incumbency advantages,
(34:25):
and sometimes even state legislatures in places like Missouri where
people know that Republicans won't lose their kind of stranglehold
on state government even if they do things voters explicitly
already rejected, for example, in a ballot initiative. So the
goal is to pursue personhood whether or not Americans want it,
and to find ways where popular opinion is less important
(34:46):
to advance that goal.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
First, tell me where person at laws are, where they're
sort of in the hopper, where we're going to see
more of that. Is it like a Texas thing the
way it was with SBA, or sort of give me
the state House personhood tour.
Speaker 5 (35:03):
Sure.
Speaker 6 (35:04):
One of the weird features of personhood is that personhood
is there are a lot of laws that reflect the
idea of a fetus or embryo having rights, and we
just don't know how enforceable they are because a lot
of these laws were passed when Roe was on the books,
and they came across as kind of get out the boat,
like feel good tools for conservatives that weren't really going anywhere. So,
(35:28):
you know, for example, everybody probably remembers last year the
Alabama Supreme Court said that state's froncful death law effectively
meant IVF couldn't continue. That law had been around for
a while.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
I remember that incredible moment.
Speaker 6 (35:41):
Yeah, so IVF had been around for a while. That
law had been around for a while, and no one
was ever using it to stop IVF. So that's kind
of the state of play when it comes to laws
already on the books. There are a lot of references
to fetal personhood, and we don't know what the conservative
state judges are going to do with them in terms
of abortion and ida.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
When that happened, they phrased the IVF. Then they went
up to the governor to indemnify against like if you
wasted eggs, it wasn't murdering a person, right, Yeah, was
that intentional? And I'd love you to talk more about
the sort of legal nuance there too.
Speaker 6 (36:20):
Yeah, Well, the Alabama legislature wasn't comfortable just saying yeah,
you know, the Alabama Supreme Court was wrong. Embryos are
not persons. Like that was an option table that wasn't
what they wanted to do, so instead they just said,
you know, we're going to protect all the people at
all in the IVF process, providers, but other people too
from criminal and civil liability, while still saying embryos are people.
(36:44):
So that just shows you that Republicans are in a
kind of sticky place when it comes to IVF in particular,
but also person who more broadly, because they don't want
to do things that are going to be profoundly unpopular
and newsworthy, but they also don't want to contradict this
idea of personhood.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Yeah. Continue on the state laws though.
Speaker 6 (37:03):
Yeah, on the new laws front, we're seeing part of
this big strategy to establish that fetal rights and as
many areas of the law as possible that are not
not just abortion, but anything right so wrongful death, like
in Alabama child support during pregnancy. The idea is to
(37:24):
essentially make it look weirder and weirder to the justices
on the Supreme Court that embryos and fetuses aren't constitutional
rights holders too. So we're seeing some bills like that
this legislative session in places like Kansas. We're also seeing
a kind of fight and breakout within the anti abortion
movement about what it would mean to enforce personhood. And
there's always been fights about that, mostly behind the scenes.
(37:47):
Now they're happening in the news end in public. So
the most visible one is to fight about whether you
need to punish women and pregnant people for having abortion
if a fetus or embryo as a person. So we're
seeing bills come up this legislative session in more states
than ever before taking that position. We're also seeing abolitionists
(38:10):
and places, as they call themselves, the pro punishing women
in faction in places like Texas, negotiating to make bands
even stricter. When they can't get the punishment of women
they want, they managed to kind of push things in
that direction in a more subtle way. So all of
that is happening right now as we speak. In the
(38:31):
name of the old person.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Let's talk about what you know personhood means in other
state houses.
Speaker 6 (38:38):
Yeah, welluses, there's still I think a debate, right, So
some states are doing the kind of disavowing that they
have a big project and just moving the ball forward
in incremental ways. So, for example, on the child support
side of things in state houses right, and in theory,
I think a lot of people could look at that
and say, I don't really have a problem with somebody
getting shild support during pregnant. See, I'd probably put myself
(39:01):
in that category. But one of the weird features of
our politics when it comes to this is that all
of these laws, like supporting these laws then becomes a
step toward recognizing constitutional fetal rights. And then it gets
even weirder because, for whatever reason, not for whatever reason,
because of decades of history, that's strange. In America, recognizing
(39:22):
fetal rights means criminalizing abortion. And that's weird. Why it's
weird is if you stop and think about it. I
don't know if you remember, but in twenty not long
after Dobbs, there was a woman in Texas who was
pregnant and she wanted to drive in the HOV lane
and she said, you know, if you're serious about this
fetal person put thing, why can't I do that? And
we've seen other moments like this where you see pregnant
(39:44):
people saying, well, hey, if you're serious about fetal person,
why aren't you treating me better? You know, why am
I not getting better healthcare?
Speaker 5 (39:51):
Why am I not?
Speaker 6 (39:52):
And so, but the way we do fetal personhood here,
which is not the way people think of fetal life,
and a lot of other countries just punishing people. That's
kind of where we've gone. And there's fights about who
gets punished and how much they get punished, but there's
no fight within the movement about the idea of a
justice equals punishment. So the fight in state houses has
(40:12):
been about that basically, like who gets punished, how much
they get punished? Are their exceptions to when they get punished?
But there hasn't really been this kind of broader debate
about why it is that we think helping anyone, including
a fetus, involves punishing someone else.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
So you have this fetal personhood, like so much in
Republican Party life right now, it has all sorts of
unintended consequences, right like child support and AHOV lines and
IVY and mourning after pills and Republicans sort of understand this,
(40:52):
but they sort of don't, right. I think they think
they can thread the needle on this. Do you think
that this is like just a step too far and
that when it starts getting into like what I think
has been interesting about this Republican Party is there's certain
things that are wildly unpopular that they've kind of gotten
(41:15):
to sneak in, but not the way they really want.
Like I'm thinking about porn right, and but this Republican Party,
Trump is so in bed with people who are like,
you know, these young influencers, people for whom ending porn
would really be a red line. Do you see, like
(41:40):
does it feel like personhood bumps up against this? And
if so, how and what do you think the play is? Well?
Speaker 6 (41:48):
I think one of the weird traits they are sort
of features of the Republican Party now is what I
sort of see is like outsourcing the deeply unpopular stuff.
So Trump is I think, totally fine with there being
deeply unpop popular things happening about a worshar ibf, but
he doesn't want to be the one doing it. So
how does he achieve that. One way he achieved that
is by putting the people on the federal courts that
(42:09):
social conservatives want and letting them do it. Often when
they do it, it will be years later, maybe when
he's not in office anymore. And even if he's in office,
he can say, hey, you know, they're just interpreting the law.
So I think that's how Republicans are trying to thread
the needle. And I think Trump was kind of emboldened
by that by Dobbs, because he sort of put the
(42:31):
people on the Supreme Court who got rid of Row,
which was deeply unpopular, and then got elected in twenty
twenty four. Anyway, Now, do I think he got elected
because people were excited that Roe was gone, or even
because people were okay with his role in Roe being gone.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
No.
Speaker 6 (42:45):
I think people voted for him because of inflation and
they weren't.
Speaker 5 (42:48):
Happy about Roa being gone at all.
Speaker 6 (42:50):
He I think learned from that that there is a
way to thread the needle, which is essentially to as
much as possible shift responsibility for unpopular policy. He's like
ones tied to personhood to other people. So I think
that's really where the danger is, and the whole States
rights idea right also is outsourcing some of those decisions
(43:11):
because state Republicans have very different incentives when it comes
to personhood.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Right.
Speaker 6 (43:18):
They're pretty much insulated from political competition. They're only feorially
is getting primary or offending conservative donors. They're incentivized to
do things like push for personhood. So we're in this
weird situation where I think national Republicans don't want their
fingerprints on this. State level Republicans and federal judges either
(43:39):
don't care or are eager to have their fingerprints on this,
and that means personhood could advance even if it's not popular.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
And why you talk about Amy Cony Barrett because she's
so interesting because she is absolutely not a friend of toys.
She was one of the votes to over Ton Roe.
I just want you to talk about her and where
you see her in this court.
Speaker 6 (44:00):
Yeah, Amy Gunnon Barrett's fascinating because I think she's obviously
deeply conservative, but I think she's also intellectually independent and
I think has her own views on pretty much every issue.
She tackles in on what the Constitution means so and
I don't think she always does what would line up
with her political preferences. I think she sees herself as
(44:23):
doing law and sees law as distinct from politics. Now,
I'm skeptical. I think everyone is skeptical that there's any
way you could entirely keep your politics out of what
you're doing with the law. But at the same time,
I think there's a difference between judges who just don't
try at all to do that and judges who do.
So what that would mean with personad with Barrett is
(44:44):
really complicated because obviously Barrett is probably the most sincerely
opposed to abortion on the court, like I think actually
cares about that in a way on religious basis that
no one else on the Court probably does. On the
other hand, I think that legal arguments for the recognition
of personhood you know, aren't very good. So she maybe
(45:07):
kind of pulled in two directions, one by her kind
of faith commitments and personal beliefs, and another by her
commitment to trying to interpret the law fairly when these
arguments about fetal rights are, you know, not great. The
argument essentially is that when the fourteenth Amendment was written,
the word person applied the moment in egg is fertilized.
And it's kind of a bizarre argument because no one
(45:31):
involved with the fourteenth Amendment talked about abortion. None of
the people who are trying to criminalize abortion talked about
the fourteenth Amendment. None of the state's criminalizing abortions seem
to think they had to criminalize abortion because of the Constitution.
So there's just this complete silence that people have to
work around to say this is what the constitution means
that I think it'd be hard for someone like Barrett
(45:52):
to ignore. But she's technically a wildcard.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
Yeah, She's such an interesting case of someone not being
a partisan hack on the Supreme Court. I wonder if
you could talk about you are a legal scholar. Besides
being a lawyer and a legal you know, you're also
a historian. And I'm wondering if you could talk a
little bit about how you see a sort of if
(46:17):
there's a historical president for something like Row, for a
law of the land overturned, and then if you wanted
to bring it back, say you were able to elect Democrats,
rebuild the country to get more people in the court,
what would a what would that look like? What would
(46:38):
be the move you would make?
Speaker 6 (46:40):
Well, I think what's happening now is actually good and
it looks like experimentation. So there are things that are
happening now I think are good, and things that are
happening now that are where there's work to be done.
The things that are good is that we're seeing a
lot of experimentation in different states with different ways of
thinking about what a constitutional reproductive right would look like.
One of the downsides of having a kind of home run,
(47:02):
big win in a case like Roe is that you
don't really get to see if it has unintended consequences,
or if it plays well with voters, or if people
can interpret it in bizarre ways, like you don't really
find any of that out until that's already the law.
So we're seeing this kind of state by state experiment
with ballot initiatives with existing state constitutions, and that kind
(47:23):
of gives us data in real time about what arguments
are the best when there is a court that.
Speaker 5 (47:28):
Would be ready to hear them.
Speaker 6 (47:30):
I think the other kind of lesson of history, though,
is that constitutional rights don't really mean a whole lot
if one you don't have a healthy democracy that's willing
to back them up. So the demise of Roe was
not just about conservatives making smart arguments to smart conservative justices,
or Donald Trump happening to ain in election, or Ruth
(47:52):
Bader Ginsburg happening to die. There was a lot being
done behind the scenes to make sure that the Supreme
Court was no longer worried about offending people or angering Americans.
So there we was working done on voter idea, laws
on vote by mail, laws on campaign finance laws. So
I think getting back to something like Roe would require
(48:16):
progressives to do all that work on the other side,
in other words, to make sure that if Americans want
there to be a right to a worship, that the
system is responsive right and begain't just ignore what people want,
which has been the reality for decades. So I think
those are probably the two big pieces that remembering that
this is not just what happens inside the courts or
(48:37):
who's on the court. It's much bigger than that.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
Yeah, it's so true and so incredibly important. And also
just anyway, Mary, thank you, thank you for coming on
the podcast.
Speaker 5 (48:52):
Yeah, of course, anytime.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
I'm happy to come.
Speaker 5 (48:54):
As you know, always so fun.
Speaker 4 (48:58):
No Mo.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
Jesse Cannon, Smiley, junk Fast, gotcha Whipper governor of Michigan.
We've been a fan in the past, but she's had
some missteps with the base of the Democratic Party lately
with her appearances around mister Trump, and yesterday she did
what many are calling enabling behavior with mister Trump.
Speaker 1 (49:21):
Look, you can't have it both ways. I understand that
she's trying to help her state. I understand that, you know,
there's manufacturing, it's a purple state. There's a lot of
reasons to want to work with Trump. And look, sometimes
people are able to manipulate manipulate Trump into good effect.
We've seen that before, but that's not what's happening here.
(49:42):
And this is the line I think is between being
a captured institution like the law firms, like the billionaires
like we're seeing with Amazon, and being really a you know,
getting by. Gretchen is a captured institution of trump Ism
(50:03):
at this moment, and the only person she is hurting
is herself. Trump is going to continue on, He is
going to do whatever he wants. She is being really
just destroyed in the public in her image by her
association with Trump. There is a way to do this
(50:24):
where you don't have to squander your public credibility, and
she is not able to spread the needle, And honestly,
it makes me sad because I think she's really smart.
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best
(50:47):
minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going Thanks for listening,
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds and Democrats win landslide in safe Iowa
State House seat. We have such a great show for
you today. The weeknight host Simone Sanders Towns and stops
(00:21):
by to talk to us about Trump's first one hundred
days of lies. Then we will talk to Personhood author
Mary Ziegler about her amazing new book on reproductive rights.
But first the news Somali.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
We throughout our time mister Trump being in our lives,
have seen him do a lot of wacky interviews.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
I love when you call him mister Trump.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I do it with the utmost contempt. Anyway, last night,
though he decided to go I want to say the
full Trump laid down the Trump card, just really leaded
into all his worst instincts and uh, why don't I
play you what many people are saying?
Speaker 1 (01:05):
To use his own words, many, many, many.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
One of his worst moments of an interview, which is
really really saying something a member of the gang.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
And then they look at on his stoles.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
He had then.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
He had on his he had some tattoos that are
interpreted that way.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
But let's move on.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Wait a minute, I will tear it.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
He did not have the letter M S one.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
This is MS one.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
That was photoshop. Uh so let me do this.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Photoshops had that.
Speaker 4 (01:38):
Hey, they're giving you the big break of a lifetime.
You know you're joined the interview.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
I picked you because, frankly, I never heard of the
invidenia to you, and begin of being very nice, he had.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
Thirteen agree to disagree. I'll move on to something else.
Do you want to show you the picture? I saw
the picture.
Speaker 2 (01:56):
Well, I've dealt with less belligerent people after doing forty
fireball shots.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
I'm sorry, but I picked you even though I had
never heard of you.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
What of the old type of grades.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
I love that so much. What he was like, I
picked you. I never heard of you, but I picked you.
Speaker 4 (02:17):
I have a feeling you said that on a lot
of first dates.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
I'm telling you, I love it so much. Look, we
have an administration where not just one person has a
warm in his brain. I don't know what to tell you.
I picked you a major career. Again, I've said this before,
I will say it again. Trump is doing a lot
of media. This is the right thing to do if
(02:40):
Democrats ever get back in power. We need Democrats to
do a lot of media. I'm sorry to tell everyone
here that is all I have, but I am correct.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Yeah, I agree, so molly, mister Trump also received.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Some very when you call him, mister Trump.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Go on, yes, very very very very bad economic news today.
As you turned to me, you said that we are
now in a recession. Well, he had a tweet that
really really was chef's kiss.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
This is Biden's stock market, not Trump's. I didn't take
over until January twentieth. By the way, let me just
tell you what day it is for those keeping track
at home. It is April thirtieth. Okay, So he has
been president for a little more than one hundred days,
which is a little more than three months. Okay, I
(03:32):
just want to point this out. And then, by the way,
this is I think really important. Tariffs will start kicking in.
Tariffs are kicking in. That's why the economy is shrinking,
is because tariffs are making things more expensive and they're
keeping people from keeping businesses from expanding. So tariffs are
kicking in. They won't start kicking in. They are kicking in,
(03:54):
and companies are starting to move into the US and
record numbers. Now that I think is probably just made up.
Our country will boom, but we have to get rid
of Biden's overhang. Okay, this will take a while. Has
nothing to do with tariffs. Again, you can put it
in all caps. But it's not right. He left us
(04:14):
with bad numbers. That's not true. We know that the
Biden economy was the envy of the world, but when
the boom begins, it will be like no other. Be
patient explanation point. Here's the thing. I just want to
say this really important stuff here. Tariffs are bad. Trump
things are good. They are keeping a lot of businesses
(04:37):
from spending money. But also it's not just the tariffs,
it's the instability. Trump is always back and forth. You know,
the tariffs are on, they're off, they're this, they're that,
and there's a lot of worry. If you're going to
build a factory, say you're a pants manufacturer. You manufacture
in China. You decide to build a factory in the
(04:58):
United States because you're worried about tariff, and you're worried
about the one hundred and fifty percent tariff on Chinese manufacturing.
So you decide to build a factory in Iowa. Now,
the way these tariffs work, some of the tariffs actually
punish you for bringing in things that are made in
other countries to manufacture. So even if you're manufacturing, you're
(05:23):
still paying China tariffs. I mean, they're just endless sort
of unforeseen consequences to these TIFFs because they're radical, radical
departures in the way America does business. And look, this
is all this Trump plan to reshore manufacturing, and that
is a long term play restoring manufacturing, and there is
(05:48):
really no handbook for it, and it would take a
long time. And so this is why this is so stupid.
And it looks like Trump is really dug in on
the terror and we're going to feel a lot more
economic pain. Also, remember tariffs were responsible for smooth Hollie,
one of the reasons why we went into the Great Depression.
(06:10):
You know, there's no world in which tips are good
for the stock market.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
I am with you, you know what, there is also
no good for the country or anyone's confidence. Psychotic press conferences.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
I consider them to be like the North Korea, like
a little bit of North Korea.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
I think this really was the week that we got
the most Korean culture since k pop landed on our shores,
right exactly, And yes, people.
Speaker 4 (06:36):
I know that's South Korea, Thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Anyway, let me pull you some clips from this absolutely
bonkers press conference, and I'm going to skip the one
where RFK says, the more four eyed you have, the
stupider you get, not doing business.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
They made a trillion dollars when you good buying a
treation dollars, even a Tritian one. I'm selling us stuff,
much of it we don't need, you know. Somebody said,
all the sholves that are going to be opened, well
maybe the children will have two dollars instead of thirty dollars,
you know, and maybe the two dolls will cost a
couple of months more than they would normally. But we're
(07:15):
not talking about something that we have to go out
of our way.
Speaker 4 (07:18):
They have ships that.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
Are loaded up with stuff, much of which not all
of it, but much of which we don't need.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
At Donald Trump, to end conspicuous consumption, congratulations, Americans are
buying too much stuff. Let's stop, and this is why
our economy is shrinking. I don't think Trump understands that
consumer spending will mean less consumer spending which will mean
(07:45):
an economy the drinks, which means that it's not just
about having two dollars or five dollars, it's about having
twenty jobs or four jobs. And Donald Trump again, it's like,
what is so amazing about Trump and this has been
true for him this entire time, is that he never
is able to sink through what things will mean in
(08:08):
the unintended consequences of things, and so you find him
thinking it's about dolls and not that you know, consumer
spending drives the economy and is an engine of the economy.
And again this is their argument with immigration, right, you
have a tight labor market to try to get people
to have babies. They don't want to have babies, and
(08:29):
you're kicking out immigrants, like, here's the deal man, you
got to get those people from somewhere.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yeah, well, the craziness doesn't stop. Here's Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
We've recinded death penalty.
Speaker 5 (08:42):
We are now seeking the death penalty on cases. I'm
signing dug warrance. We are going after tear, we are
going after arsonist, whether you're burning teslas. We will be
arrested nine people so far in seven jurisdictions, no negotiations,
twenty years.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
And she's citing death warrants.
Speaker 1 (09:02):
For people burning Tesla's. That seems like a mistake.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
I think she kind of meant to say that it's
for the people doing fens at all, but it really
read that way, and I hope it's not the case.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Personally, I don't think it's good to kill people, especially
for cars, for burning cars. But you know, the thing
about Tesla that's so interesting, besides the fact that this
administration is completely unhinged, is that you saw last week
Elon Musk hit an arnings call seventy one percent drop
(09:38):
in Tesla's earnings. Elon said that, actually, Tesla's not the
play anymore. It's these autonomous driving cars. Waimo is eating
his lunch with the autonomous cars, right, so it's not
going to be autonomous cars. So much of Elon's empires
based on SpaceX and the satellites and the communication arm
(10:04):
of it. Elon has really backed himself into a corner here,
and his embrace of MAGA has really hurt his companies.
And I'll be curious, you know, he said he would
step back. I don't believe anything that anyone says, especially
out of the admin. But it'll be interesting to see
if he hits a moment work shareholders are like, this
(10:27):
is enough. Simone Sanders. Townsend is the co host of
the Weeknight along with Michael Steele and Alicia Menendez. Eric
Monday is from seven to nine pm Tuesdays through Fridays
(10:50):
seven to eight Eastern on MSNBC and in Premiers Monday,
May fifth. Hi, I'm so excited to have you. Welcome
to Fast Politics, Samon.
Speaker 5 (11:02):
I'm happy to be here at Fast Politics. Mollie.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
Let's talk about where we are right now. One hundred
little more than one hundred days. Oh, Mollie, you were
listening to Trump's pressor he has now crashed the economy.
How edgedy is he about having crashed the economy?
Speaker 5 (11:20):
You know, don't believe he crashed the economy. I say
it was a press conference. He was taking questions at
the cabinet meeting, which is something you know usually he
has a lot of cadem meetings where he likes to
come in and pray and take questions. I'm wondering how
much work gets done at the cabinet meeting, give all
the t and a that has happened, but he does
not believe that he's crashed the economy. I say that
because of what he said. He said, we're doing really well.
(11:42):
The teriffs haven't even all the way been implemented, but
we've gotten our numbers down. I'm using quotes about what
we pay when it comes to other countries for tariffs,
and I just cannot stress to people enough that a
tariff is a tax and the people are paying the tax.
And when other countries eliminate tariffs on us, meaning in
(12:04):
the United States, that does nothing to help the United
States economy. What it does cripple the economy of the
home country because they have a tariff because we're I mean,
look some things we just don't make in America, folks.
There is not enough coffee in Puerto Rico and Hawaii
to sustain American's coffee habits. Okay, more importantly, yes, it's
(12:25):
just it just doesn't happen. So, yeah, we've got a
trade deficit, if you will, with countries that make more coffee,
for example, because we're importing a lot of coffee. And
there's nothing wrong with that. But Donald Trump, I believe
Miley is just banking on people just not knowing general
economics and not thinking enough to care to google. He
told lies about how much money the United States that's
(12:45):
sent to Ukraine. It was just really crazy. But I
listen because it's important for us all to be informed.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
So I want to talk to you about something really
important which I have noticed about Don Trump's beening office
one hundred days. This man is doing interviews almost every day.
He is doing interviews, he's doing television, he's doing Time magazine,
he's doing pressors. He's doing these North Korean style televised
(13:11):
cabinet meetings where everyone goes around the room and talks
about how great he is, and he takes questions during them.
And this is in no way a compliment of Donald Trump.
And this is a real question to you because you're
smart and also because you're honest. Do you think there's
a lesson to be learned here for Democrats about this
media accessibility? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (13:32):
Little?
Speaker 1 (13:33):
So.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
First, you know, I think, is how secret what Donald
tup does well? Is he is a master marketer. You know,
whether he is telling the truth when he's doing this
marketing is another question. But I think it is a
valid thing to point out that, you know, he's a
good marketer. That's how he made a lot of his money.
That's how he fashioned himself for years as the apprentice,
(13:54):
you know what I mean. So people believe that he
is a good businessman because he marketed himself as such,
an because the numbers bored that out, and so there
is a letton to take there. Look a lot of
around one hundred days. I mean, what he has done
in the last couple of days, I believe is very
standard to past presidents. At one hundred day mark, you
do have you would usually have one hundred day interview
(14:14):
or two that drop. You will go and do a
big event to mark your one hundred days. He did
that in Michigan. You would have maybe a television interview
or two to drop. He did one on Fox and
then obviously he's now taking questions at the cabinet meeting.
He could have also, you know, a president previously might
have been a press conference. The level of accessibility that
the president is offering I do think is important past presidents,
(14:37):
but I think people would compare this to President Biden
did not was not as accessible, if you will, in
terms of wanting to do interviews. He didn't want to.
And now I think if you talk to a lot
of White House reporters, they would say, well, he didn't
do the interviews because he couldn't. And I, you know,
stand firmly that it is not that he couldn't, it's
that he did not want to. But it seems like
a distin distinction without a difference. But given some of
(14:58):
the things that we know are come down the pipeline
in terms of some of these books that are coming
out about by an administration, I do think is a
distinction that is quite.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
As important to mention.
Speaker 5 (15:07):
Yeah, but you know, yes, Donald Trump is very accessible. Absolutely,
I think that that's important. I think if you want
to get your message out, the best way to help
shape what people are saying about your message is in fact,
to talk to them. It's to tell them what your
message is. I think the biggest difference soul between Donald
Trump and everyone else is literally the man could say
I landed on the moon yesterday and they will move
(15:28):
on to the next question. And you know, I've worked
for candidates who are running for president. I worked for
a president and a vice president while they're in office.
That's just not usually how it works. I mean, the
benefit of the doubt that Donald Trump is afforded oftentimes
in these back and forth settings is insane. And I
think that it's one thing to be Accessibility is important,
(15:50):
but what you say when you are accessible should also matter.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
In my opinion, oh one hundred percent. But I do
think there's more. Let's talk about Biden for a minute,
because you and I.
Speaker 5 (15:59):
I both What do you think, Molly? What do you think?
Speaker 1 (16:02):
This is why I love you? There are these books
that say whatever. I do not believe that getting old
is a conspiracy. I believe getting old is getting old.
As someone who has a mother who has actual dementia
and a father who is just getting old, I actually
know that getting old is just getting old. And the
(16:24):
ways we feel about getting old are a lot about
ourselves and not so much about conspiracies. So I have
been really impressed with just how sleazy I think a
lot of this is. And by the way, I still
there is no one with all these books. And again,
maybe there's something that will come out, but you know,
(16:45):
everything I've read so far makes me think that it
was a guy getting older.
Speaker 5 (16:50):
Look, I obviously did not work in the White House
with the President the last you know, two three years.
What I know about Joe Biden for what I saw
for my own two eyes, and I mean I saw
him about a week before inauguration. I was at the
White House. I had a conversation with him, We spent
some time together. I think the cognitive decline self is
a bunch of bs. I really do. I think that
there is a distinction between one being getting older in
(17:14):
age and legitimately having a cognitive decline that there is
something wrong with you up there. And I do not
think the president President Biden was suffering from a cognitive decline.
Now that being said, could you say that maybe he
was in denial about the political reality of the situation.
I think you can ask personally say that, Yeah, if
we say he's in denial, then we have to ask, well,
(17:34):
how did that come to be? Who were some of
the people around him saying some of the things to him?
But then that takes us to a deeper level, and
that means some other individuals had to take some accountability
for the advice, if you will, and counsel that they
gave the president, and that's, you know, kind of hard
to do. One could argue they don't want to do that,
So it's very easier to just say, oh, blame Joe.
(17:55):
I just you know, I think two things can be
true at the same time. Was the President older? Absolutely? Also,
I mean, well, we'll have to hear from Joe Biden
on this, and I hope that he does decide to
come out and say a little something. But knowing what
I know about him, I believe one thousand percent that
what was happening with Hunter and the target, that the
Department of Justice and the Donald Trump and all this ally,
(18:17):
all of the Trump, the President, president Trump's allies had
on Hunter Biden specifically, I have to believe that that
weighed on the President in an immense way that I
do not believe he's adequately or he's articulated to us. Now,
what happened to that debate, Molly, I don't know. The
streets say the President was sick, and I'm like, okay,
(18:38):
if he's sick, y'all probably should have said that before
the debate, not in the middle, and not after. But
then you see the President go out on stage, President
Biden with the then first Lady, doctor Joe Biden, and
doctor Biden says, you did great, and then and the
President gives a very rousing speech post debate to a
crowd of folks and people are like, well, where was
this man twenty minutes? And then he goes to what
(18:59):
was it a wall house, and the reporters that are
following him in the pool ask him, you know, how
does he think he did? From outside look at him
as the president? It was kind of not great. And
Joe Biden, you know, it's kind of hard to debate
a bully. No no, no, no, no, no no no no.
That to me goes back to the advice and the
counsel of the advisors, because I'd had to give advice
and counsel before. And you have to be willing to
(19:20):
tell the principle the hard thing. You don't want to crush,
you know, their morale. But I mean, if you come
off of stage and you sucked, you gotta be willing
to tell the principle that, sir, the end, you ended
stronger than you started. The beginning was rocky, and frankly,
we are being lambasted on social and in the press
(19:41):
giving your performance, and then we have to talk about
a strategy. But I don't believe that that moment happened
with President Biden. And I think there are many instances
where the folks whose job it was to tell the
president the truth, okay, they were not telling him the truth.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Yeah, I think that's right. I also think part of
problem here, and I think this is a real problem
with democratic politics. I'm going to tell you a story
and you tell me what you think. So there is
this question of who will be the ranking member on oversight.
This gets me very agitated. I had a chance to
elevate someone young with a bigger profile. Could have been AOC,
(20:19):
could have been Jasmine Cracker, could have been Max well Frost.
They'll probably not chance to elevate someone who has actually
an ability to shine the spotlight on things right. Instead,
they decide to elevate Jerry.
Speaker 5 (20:36):
Connolly that day. Let's be specific, good old speaker hearts
on Nancy Pelosi.
Speaker 1 (20:42):
Right. I think there's a straight line between elevating Jerry
Connolly and Democrats not doing well in polls. Discuss yes
and no.
Speaker 5 (20:52):
First of all, everybody has had a lot to say
over the last couple of days in terms of the
one hundred day polling around prevent Trump, and I always
people their polls are a snapshot in time, so you
cannot put all this stock in the polls when you
like them, and then when you don't like the polls,
it's like, oh, Poles, I'm at it. So I hope
this and is saying they're a snapshot, So sure, the
snapshot is saying right now that Americans don't like what
(21:14):
is happening in the first one hundred days, but we're
gonna remain to be seen. They don't like it, yet
there's still people who support the president saying I don't
like it, but I support the president.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Yeah, got it. Disappear more grad students because that don't
really help his poem.
Speaker 5 (21:27):
Oh, because that's what the American people want, and fringe
love the process. They love that, they love lawlessness, feeling
like they live in a third world dictatorship. That'll get them, yeah,
I think. And first, you know, obviously, since Congressman Conley
has been elevated, he has now said he's going to
not only step back from the committee, but also not
run for re election for Congress because his cancer has
come back and he is a great public servant, he
(21:49):
has served honorably and like many blessings and sending good
prayers to him and his family. Correct, And I do
though think that allowing and I mean it spinning Pelosi,
who is not currently the speaker, still wields a lot
of power and there are a lot of people that
are very much so still allied with her within the
ranks of the congressional Democrats on the hill in the House.
(22:11):
I do think frankly, it was a mistake. I do.
And it's not just about newer, younger people. It is
about understanding and putting together a strategy and putting the
people in place that is needed for time such as this,
and in my opinion, with Democrats need to demonstrate because
they are the minority, because there's little they can do
to affect what is happening. Sands withhold their votes for
(22:33):
a budget right or that ceiling which is coming up.
Is demonstrate some fight that shows up in how you campaign,
but also how you ask questions in your committee hearings,
where you go, what you say, how you show up
on television, and in this day and age, I think
democratic elected officials need to put forward the people in
the spaces and places that can demonstrate the fight and
(22:55):
have the strategy there. So I think some of the
polling is just supposed with not just this particular not
lack of elevation of newer, younger members and the cementing
of someone who is a more seasoned member. I think
that polling is indicative of the fact that in the
first couple weeks when Donald Trump was inaugurated, this second time,
(23:16):
Democrats is just like, it ain't nothing we can do.
Oh oh, we're large. There were a couple of people,
the Democratic governors ready to fight. Democratic attorney generals literally
had a plan. Democratic members of Conference and leadership was
just kind of like they got caught flat footed, like
they haven't known since November that Donald Trump was about
to be president. And as someone that worked in Democratic politics,
(23:37):
you know, for the entire first part of my professional life,
for someone who grew up and worked for and advocated
for the Democratic Party apparatus, I was definitely disappointed. And frankly,
I think that if Democrats did not start to demonstrate
some fight, there would not have been an argument to
make for why they should be able to take back
the House next year. But I do think what we've
(23:58):
seen since that time is there's been some trial and error.
Some of it has worked out, some of it hasn't,
But the American people are at least seeing that there
are members of Congress disproportionately Democrats and like three Republicans
who are willing to stand up to the President, for
their constituents, for what is right, for what is the law,
(24:20):
and that will matter to voters come twenty twenty six.
The last thing I'll say, Maley is I think that
Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, and the Republican Party apparatus read large,
they are seeing the same you know, they know the
same things I just said that you and I know
to be true. They're seeing the same polling, They're seeing
the energy that the opposition is fired up. And I
(24:41):
do not believe that Steven Miller and Donald Trump are
just gonna go quietly into the night and let the
House slip through their fingers because of a little thing
called public sentiment, between the Save Act, between these executive
orders on voting, between what Republicans specifically in North Carolina
are doing right now to steal an election from Alison Riggs,
who was the duly elected member of the state Supreme
(25:03):
Court in November. She won that race, and they've done
everything in their power, the Republicans in that state, to
change the vote. Okay, I think they're waiting un till
twenty twenty eight to you know, implement a voter suppression strategy.
This is happening right now, and I do think that
people have to be vigilant and Democrats have to have
a plan. You can't out vote voter suppression. It don't
(25:23):
work like that.
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Yeah, I think that's right. Let's talk about the CR.
I'm sorry, it's.
Speaker 5 (25:33):
Like, why do you keep this appointing me? What are
going on?
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Right? So let's talk about the CR. There's a CR.
It goes through Congress, it makes it through Congress, once
it's in the Senate. Democrats have their names on it.
It's hard. It's very hard to shut down the government.
Speaker 5 (25:49):
I don't think so at all.
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Okay, so let's talk about that. So what do you
think should have happened? And what do you think? Talk
to me?
Speaker 5 (25:55):
So, first of all, I understand the argument of well,
if if we shut down, if we allow the government
to shut down, then it is the executive branch that
decides what things are, what functions are essential and non essential.
And if the government deems something essential, it continues to operate.
If you will, people don't get paid, they continue to operate.
(26:16):
If the government deeds being something not essential, it does
not continue to operate, and on top of that, you
don't get paid. So I upset that argument. But they're
doing it anyway right now. So I'm just kind of like, Okay,
our is there. You're a cool like, he's not doing
this right now. I could see. I could see if
the United if the federal government was not arbitrarily picking
(26:37):
and choosing what departments and agencies to shut down unconstitutionally
because they don't have to power to do so. I
can understand if they were not already doing that. But
they were already doing it. And so the argument that
Democrats were making are we don't want to show down
the government because there's no way for us to ever
get the government back open, and that is also not
a true argument. I think that people that needed to
(27:00):
see a fight, and frankly the same way that Donald
Trump is that are about face on these tariffs, signs
just sprun around. If I spent around in my chair,
put a pause on those chairs and ninety day palls
because people are like, this is too crazy. And the
public outcry was in saying Democrats would not have been
blamed for the government being shut out. It would be
Donald Trump and the Republicans' unwillingness to negotiate with their
(27:22):
Democratic counterparts. You have to be you have to stand
for something in the face of lawless tyranny. You cannot
roll over because of the procedure and process. And frankly,
that was like the only time in the foreseeable future
until it's a debt ceiling. And I think the debt
seiling is a very different fight because the debt ceiling
is about money that we already spent. It's not about
how money that is to be spent. Dead ceiling is
(27:44):
literally paying your credit card bill because you already spent
the money, so you now have to pay the bill.
It's like the ax every month that comes due. Honey.
Then I plan about said thirty days. This was the
opportunity to do something. The very little power that the
Democratic Party operat has had, the elected officials and Washington,
they squandered, at my opinion, that opportunity because there was
(28:04):
a strategic divide in terms of what Democrats, particularly in
the United States Senate thought was plausible. And frankly, Leader Schumer,
I mean, on Wednesday, the man is like we're fighting
and by Thursday, He's like, we must spawn the government,
we must do our due diligence. I'm like, I'm got whiplashed.
I don't know what is it?
Speaker 1 (28:23):
What happened? Simoan? I really appreciate you. You cracked me up,
but you're also correct, you know.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
But can we end on a hopeful note because I
think people hear like, well, dang, no hope. I believe
as I like to have my deal in my hand,
I believe that the people had the power. And if
don't believe that the people have the power, look at
what has happened in this country in this first one
hundred days. Down't stop put the palls on the tariffs
because people stood up, raised their voices, restored their discontent,
(28:54):
called their elected officials, and the elected officials called the
White House, Democrats and Republicans. People have really been in
the streets protesting every single day of this presc it works.
They tried to shut off the Medicaid portals in the
first like two weeks, and people's outcry made them turn
the portals back, going in and say it wasn't a
So the people do have the power. And when we
(29:16):
stand up, I know it doesn't feel it like we
do some days. I know it feels like dark and
hopeless some days, but truly we still live in the
United States of America. We still live in the You know,
this is the first multi racial democracy that has ever
been tried in the history of the world. We are
still in it. A segment of individuals, including the President
(29:37):
of the United States, would like it to turn us
into something else, but for now, we are still a
democratic republic and we have to fight for our democracy
as standing up and raising your voice, not rolling over,
asking questions why how can they do that? No, I
don't want this to happen, demanding that you're elected officials,
whether they are Democrats or Republicans, speak up. Don Bacon
of Nebraska is speaking up and out against people and
(29:59):
his party president for what is right, because he himself
knows it's correct to do, and his constituents have asked
him to do so. The people have the power.
Speaker 1 (30:07):
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Simone.
Speaker 5 (30:10):
Thank you, Molly. It's always a pleasure.
Speaker 1 (30:13):
Mary Ziegler is a legal historian and the author of Personhood,
The News, Civil War over Reproduction. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome.
Speaker 6 (30:23):
Mary, Thanks for having me Buck.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Mary Ziegler I think of you as like the smartest
person writing about the law and history right now, and
also very smart law professor. So talk to me about
this book and where you are right now.
Speaker 6 (30:44):
Yeah, I mean I wrote the book because after Dobbs,
I think there was a moment when I started to
have friends say, essentially, you know, what are you going
to do now that it's over? And I think they
meant it's over for conservatives. Obviously it was never over
for people who supported reproductive rights, who aren't going to
stop fighting. But I think they meant, what are you
going to do now that people on the right got
(31:05):
everything they wanted? And I thought, well, they didn't everything
they wanted. It's not over for them either, and things
can get a whole lot worse from the standpoint of
reproductive rights. And I think that's something I knew as
a historian that most people didn't have to know. So
I wrote the book really about how it was never
just about getting rid of row for people who oppose abortion,
(31:29):
and how what it is about, which is this idea
of fetal personhood could reshape, you know, the way people
experience pregnancy and reproduction in all kinds of ways that
I don't think we've been aware.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Of Yes, So this is like an obsession of mine
because I had seen the writing on the wall with
fetal personhood. So this book is called Personhood the New
Civil War over Reproduction, and it is I don't want
to be nice, but I want to explain how important
(32:02):
this is. It is the smartest thing conservatives have done.
So I want you to talk us through how we
went from basically heartbeat laws to a nagism person Yeah.
Speaker 6 (32:15):
Well, one of the things that I think people don't
realize about personhood is it was there the whole time, right.
So it's not new in the sense that these arguments
have been in kind of in the hopper waiting to.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Be brought out.
Speaker 6 (32:29):
They were developed. I think the initial personhood argument started
in the nineteen sixties and they've never really gone away.
A quick way to kind of find this is to
look at old Republican Party platforms. They were there the
whole time, right. So I think what's changed is the
willingness of anti abortion groups to say this openly now
(32:50):
that Roe is gone. I think a few things have changed.
I think one, there's not as much fear about offending
or pissing off voters.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
And two, I.
Speaker 6 (33:00):
Think there's a realization that the way to success really
is through the federal courts, who are willing to do
things that voters would not, And that means you can
make arguments about, for example, constitutional fetal rights requiring the
criminalization of abortion or severe limits on IBF that you
(33:21):
know voters would hate, because you're not talking to voters anymore.
So that transition has really been a visible since Stobs
part of this much longer again, like a campaign that's
been going on for over half a century.
Speaker 1 (33:33):
Now, explain what that means. You're not accountable to voters anymore.
Speaker 6 (33:38):
Well, yeah, of course abortion opponents can be right, which
is one of the reasons why we're seeing i think
a little bit of slow walking from the Trump administration.
We still obviously we're not that deep into the Trump administration.
We could still see national limits on abortion, but we
have seen Trump roll out one thing after another very
very quickly, and not as quickly it comes to abortion.
(34:00):
So Republicans are still accountable to voters, but anti abortion
groups are relying less on Republicans who still have to
run competitive races, and relying more and advancing personhood on
people who don't so think the justices on the Supreme
Court think other federal judges think state Supreme Court judges
who either don't face election or have tremendous incumbency advantages,
(34:25):
and sometimes even state legislatures in places like Missouri where
people know that Republicans won't lose their kind of stranglehold
on state government even if they do things voters explicitly
already rejected, for example, in a ballot initiative. So the
goal is to pursue personhood whether or not Americans want it,
and to find ways where popular opinion is less important
(34:46):
to advance that goal.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
First, tell me where person at laws are, where they're
sort of in the hopper, where we're going to see
more of that. Is it like a Texas thing the
way it was with SBA, or sort of give me
the state House personhood tour.
Speaker 5 (35:03):
Sure.
Speaker 6 (35:04):
One of the weird features of personhood is that personhood
is there are a lot of laws that reflect the
idea of a fetus or embryo having rights, and we
just don't know how enforceable they are because a lot
of these laws were passed when Roe was on the books,
and they came across as kind of get out the boat,
like feel good tools for conservatives that weren't really going anywhere. So,
(35:28):
you know, for example, everybody probably remembers last year the
Alabama Supreme Court said that state's froncful death law effectively
meant IVF couldn't continue. That law had been around for
a while.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
I remember that incredible moment.
Speaker 6 (35:41):
Yeah, so IVF had been around for a while. That
law had been around for a while, and no one
was ever using it to stop IVF. So that's kind
of the state of play when it comes to laws
already on the books. There are a lot of references
to fetal personhood, and we don't know what the conservative
state judges are going to do with them in terms
of abortion and ida.
Speaker 1 (36:00):
When that happened, they phrased the IVF. Then they went
up to the governor to indemnify against like if you
wasted eggs, it wasn't murdering a person, right, Yeah, was
that intentional? And I'd love you to talk more about
the sort of legal nuance there too.
Speaker 6 (36:20):
Yeah, Well, the Alabama legislature wasn't comfortable just saying yeah,
you know, the Alabama Supreme Court was wrong. Embryos are
not persons. Like that was an option table that wasn't
what they wanted to do, so instead they just said,
you know, we're going to protect all the people at
all in the IVF process, providers, but other people too
from criminal and civil liability, while still saying embryos are people.
(36:44):
So that just shows you that Republicans are in a
kind of sticky place when it comes to IVF in particular,
but also person who more broadly, because they don't want
to do things that are going to be profoundly unpopular
and newsworthy, but they also don't want to contradict this
idea of personhood.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Yeah. Continue on the state laws though.
Speaker 6 (37:03):
Yeah, on the new laws front, we're seeing part of
this big strategy to establish that fetal rights and as
many areas of the law as possible that are not
not just abortion, but anything right so wrongful death, like
in Alabama child support during pregnancy. The idea is to
(37:24):
essentially make it look weirder and weirder to the justices
on the Supreme Court that embryos and fetuses aren't constitutional
rights holders too. So we're seeing some bills like that
this legislative session in places like Kansas. We're also seeing
a kind of fight and breakout within the anti abortion
movement about what it would mean to enforce personhood. And
there's always been fights about that, mostly behind the scenes.
(37:47):
Now they're happening in the news end in public. So
the most visible one is to fight about whether you
need to punish women and pregnant people for having abortion
if a fetus or embryo as a person. So we're
seeing bills come up this legislative session in more states
than ever before taking that position. We're also seeing abolitionists
(38:10):
and places, as they call themselves, the pro punishing women
in faction in places like Texas, negotiating to make bands
even stricter. When they can't get the punishment of women
they want, they managed to kind of push things in
that direction in a more subtle way. So all of
that is happening right now as we speak. In the
(38:31):
name of the old person.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Let's talk about what you know personhood means in other
state houses.
Speaker 6 (38:38):
Yeah, welluses, there's still I think a debate, right, So
some states are doing the kind of disavowing that they
have a big project and just moving the ball forward
in incremental ways. So, for example, on the child support
side of things in state houses right, and in theory,
I think a lot of people could look at that
and say, I don't really have a problem with somebody
getting shild support during pregnant. See, I'd probably put myself
(39:01):
in that category. But one of the weird features of
our politics when it comes to this is that all
of these laws, like supporting these laws then becomes a
step toward recognizing constitutional fetal rights. And then it gets
even weirder because, for whatever reason, not for whatever reason,
because of decades of history, that's strange. In America, recognizing
(39:22):
fetal rights means criminalizing abortion. And that's weird. Why it's
weird is if you stop and think about it. I
don't know if you remember, but in twenty not long
after Dobbs, there was a woman in Texas who was
pregnant and she wanted to drive in the HOV lane
and she said, you know, if you're serious about this
fetal person put thing, why can't I do that? And
we've seen other moments like this where you see pregnant
(39:44):
people saying, well, hey, if you're serious about fetal person,
why aren't you treating me better? You know, why am
I not getting better healthcare?
Speaker 5 (39:51):
Why am I not?
Speaker 6 (39:52):
And so, but the way we do fetal personhood here,
which is not the way people think of fetal life,
and a lot of other countries just punishing people. That's
kind of where we've gone. And there's fights about who
gets punished and how much they get punished, but there's
no fight within the movement about the idea of a
justice equals punishment. So the fight in state houses has
(40:12):
been about that basically, like who gets punished, how much
they get punished? Are their exceptions to when they get punished?
But there hasn't really been this kind of broader debate
about why it is that we think helping anyone, including
a fetus, involves punishing someone else.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
So you have this fetal personhood, like so much in
Republican Party life right now, it has all sorts of
unintended consequences, right like child support and AHOV lines and
IVY and mourning after pills and Republicans sort of understand this,
(40:52):
but they sort of don't, right. I think they think
they can thread the needle on this. Do you think
that this is like just a step too far and
that when it starts getting into like what I think
has been interesting about this Republican Party is there's certain
things that are wildly unpopular that they've kind of gotten
(41:15):
to sneak in, but not the way they really want.
Like I'm thinking about porn right, and but this Republican Party,
Trump is so in bed with people who are like,
you know, these young influencers, people for whom ending porn
would really be a red line. Do you see, like
(41:40):
does it feel like personhood bumps up against this? And
if so, how and what do you think the play is? Well?
Speaker 6 (41:48):
I think one of the weird traits they are sort
of features of the Republican Party now is what I
sort of see is like outsourcing the deeply unpopular stuff.
So Trump is I think, totally fine with there being
deeply unpop popular things happening about a worshar ibf, but
he doesn't want to be the one doing it. So
how does he achieve that. One way he achieved that
is by putting the people on the federal courts that
(42:09):
social conservatives want and letting them do it. Often when
they do it, it will be years later, maybe when
he's not in office anymore. And even if he's in office,
he can say, hey, you know, they're just interpreting the law.
So I think that's how Republicans are trying to thread
the needle. And I think Trump was kind of emboldened
by that by Dobbs, because he sort of put the
(42:31):
people on the Supreme Court who got rid of Row,
which was deeply unpopular, and then got elected in twenty
twenty four. Anyway, Now, do I think he got elected
because people were excited that Roe was gone, or even
because people were okay with his role in Roe being gone.
Speaker 1 (42:45):
No.
Speaker 6 (42:45):
I think people voted for him because of inflation and
they weren't.
Speaker 5 (42:48):
Happy about Roa being gone at all.
Speaker 6 (42:50):
He I think learned from that that there is a
way to thread the needle, which is essentially to as
much as possible shift responsibility for unpopular policy. He's like
ones tied to personhood to other people. So I think
that's really where the danger is, and the whole States
rights idea right also is outsourcing some of those decisions
(43:11):
because state Republicans have very different incentives when it comes
to personhood.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Right.
Speaker 6 (43:18):
They're pretty much insulated from political competition. They're only feorially
is getting primary or offending conservative donors. They're incentivized to
do things like push for personhood. So we're in this
weird situation where I think national Republicans don't want their
fingerprints on this. State level Republicans and federal judges either
(43:39):
don't care or are eager to have their fingerprints on this,
and that means personhood could advance even if it's not popular.
Speaker 1 (43:45):
And why you talk about Amy Cony Barrett because she's
so interesting because she is absolutely not a friend of toys.
She was one of the votes to over Ton Roe.
I just want you to talk about her and where
you see her in this court.
Speaker 6 (44:00):
Yeah, Amy Gunnon Barrett's fascinating because I think she's obviously
deeply conservative, but I think she's also intellectually independent and
I think has her own views on pretty much every issue.
She tackles in on what the Constitution means so and
I don't think she always does what would line up
with her political preferences. I think she sees herself as
(44:23):
doing law and sees law as distinct from politics. Now,
I'm skeptical. I think everyone is skeptical that there's any
way you could entirely keep your politics out of what
you're doing with the law. But at the same time,
I think there's a difference between judges who just don't
try at all to do that and judges who do.
So what that would mean with personad with Barrett is
(44:44):
really complicated because obviously Barrett is probably the most sincerely
opposed to abortion on the court, like I think actually
cares about that in a way on religious basis that
no one else on the Court probably does. On the
other hand, I think that legal arguments for the recognition
of personhood you know, aren't very good. So she maybe
(45:07):
kind of pulled in two directions, one by her kind
of faith commitments and personal beliefs, and another by her
commitment to trying to interpret the law fairly when these
arguments about fetal rights are, you know, not great. The
argument essentially is that when the fourteenth Amendment was written,
the word person applied the moment in egg is fertilized.
And it's kind of a bizarre argument because no one
(45:31):
involved with the fourteenth Amendment talked about abortion. None of
the people who are trying to criminalize abortion talked about
the fourteenth Amendment. None of the state's criminalizing abortions seem
to think they had to criminalize abortion because of the Constitution.
So there's just this complete silence that people have to
work around to say this is what the constitution means
that I think it'd be hard for someone like Barrett
(45:52):
to ignore. But she's technically a wildcard.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
Yeah, She's such an interesting case of someone not being
a partisan hack on the Supreme Court. I wonder if
you could talk about you are a legal scholar. Besides
being a lawyer and a legal you know, you're also
a historian. And I'm wondering if you could talk a
little bit about how you see a sort of if
(46:17):
there's a historical president for something like Row, for a
law of the land overturned, and then if you wanted
to bring it back, say you were able to elect Democrats,
rebuild the country to get more people in the court,
what would a what would that look like? What would
(46:38):
be the move you would make?
Speaker 6 (46:40):
Well, I think what's happening now is actually good and
it looks like experimentation. So there are things that are
happening now I think are good, and things that are
happening now that are where there's work to be done.
The things that are good is that we're seeing a
lot of experimentation in different states with different ways of
thinking about what a constitutional reproductive right would look like.
One of the downsides of having a kind of home run,
(47:02):
big win in a case like Roe is that you
don't really get to see if it has unintended consequences,
or if it plays well with voters, or if people
can interpret it in bizarre ways, like you don't really
find any of that out until that's already the law.
So we're seeing this kind of state by state experiment
with ballot initiatives with existing state constitutions, and that kind
(47:23):
of gives us data in real time about what arguments
are the best when there is a court that.
Speaker 5 (47:28):
Would be ready to hear them.
Speaker 6 (47:30):
I think the other kind of lesson of history, though,
is that constitutional rights don't really mean a whole lot
if one you don't have a healthy democracy that's willing
to back them up. So the demise of Roe was
not just about conservatives making smart arguments to smart conservative justices,
or Donald Trump happening to ain in election, or Ruth
(47:52):
Bader Ginsburg happening to die. There was a lot being
done behind the scenes to make sure that the Supreme
Court was no longer worried about offending people or angering Americans.
So there we was working done on voter idea, laws
on vote by mail, laws on campaign finance laws. So
I think getting back to something like Roe would require
(48:16):
progressives to do all that work on the other side,
in other words, to make sure that if Americans want
there to be a right to a worship, that the
system is responsive right and begain't just ignore what people want,
which has been the reality for decades. So I think
those are probably the two big pieces that remembering that
this is not just what happens inside the courts or
(48:37):
who's on the court. It's much bigger than that.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
Yeah, it's so true and so incredibly important. And also
just anyway, Mary, thank you, thank you for coming on
the podcast.
Speaker 5 (48:52):
Yeah, of course, anytime.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
I'm happy to come.
Speaker 5 (48:54):
As you know, always so fun.
Speaker 4 (48:58):
No Mo.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
Jesse Cannon, Smiley, junk Fast, gotcha Whipper governor of Michigan.
We've been a fan in the past, but she's had
some missteps with the base of the Democratic Party lately
with her appearances around mister Trump, and yesterday she did
what many are calling enabling behavior with mister Trump.
Speaker 1 (49:21):
Look, you can't have it both ways. I understand that
she's trying to help her state. I understand that, you know,
there's manufacturing, it's a purple state. There's a lot of
reasons to want to work with Trump. And look, sometimes
people are able to manipulate manipulate Trump into good effect.
We've seen that before, but that's not what's happening here.
(49:42):
And this is the line I think is between being
a captured institution like the law firms, like the billionaires
like we're seeing with Amazon, and being really a you know,
getting by. Gretchen is a captured institution of trump Ism
(50:03):
at this moment, and the only person she is hurting
is herself. Trump is going to continue on, He is
going to do whatever he wants. She is being really
just destroyed in the public in her image by her
association with Trump. There is a way to do this
(50:24):
where you don't have to squander your public credibility, and
she is not able to spread the needle, And honestly,
it makes me sad because I think she's really smart.
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best
(50:47):
minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going Thanks for listening,
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.