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 a few research centers. Study found a fifty three percent of you as adults rated America's.
Morals and ethics as bad.
We have situhow for you today ms Now's own Ali Bell. She stops by to talk about Epstein and the economy and the third Golf War. Then we'll talk to Semaphore's Dave Weigel about the mid term battles he's watching.
But first the news.
All right, Bali, we did not get to tape yesterday, so we did not get to discuss that Christine Nobles out. Mark Wayne Mullin is in. I like to think of him as the senator from Idiocracy because he talks like that.
Mark Wwayne Mullin, do.
You share my sentiment that Trump probably hired him because he's the most belligerent responder to any reporter at any pushback.
Yes, yeah, I think Mark Wayne had been like on a tour or on an audition tour. Remember, Trump's hiring tends to reflect who he thinks will be good on television, so this makes a lot of sense that Mark Wayne would catch his eye. Mark Wayne has been like every camera he's seen, he's ran to look. Mark Wayne is an interesting guy because he is quite stupid, and he speaks in a very you know, it's not entirely clear
what he's talking about a lot of time. He is, however, a US senator, which makes me wonder, like I do wonder why. You know, Mark Wayne is from a very red state, and I don't totally understand why you take this job, Like you know, I mean, there's not going to be a third Trump administration. There's no way Christy Nome is going to be the last cabinet member to be fired. She's likely the first.
Let's also remember he's one of the senators who's most enriched himself with stocks too, so he's giving that up shockingly, right, I know.
To just enrich himself from working in the admin, which I think he'll probably do too.
It seems like Christy did exactly.
I want to talk about Christy Nomes's hearings, one in the Senate, one in the House. In the Senate, there were a couple moments that I think really or clearly
the reporting says sealed her fate. One was the Louisiana Senator John Kennedy who asked her why she had spent two hundred and twenty million dollars on advertisements with her face on them, and she said Trump signed off on it, and then Trump said he didn't sign off on it, leading us to like one of these weird moments in Trump's second term where it is as likely that he is lying that she is lying discuss.
Yeah, that's the right hypothesis, but like, you can't believe like this amount of advertising for something like this, and it's why we see her everywhere in the freaking airports, everywhere you can look. That's even aside from the fact that it seems like a lot of this fucking graft that never happened, none of it when anywhere, and we still see her fucking face everywhere.
Yeah, every time you go on a TSA line, there she is with the cowboy hat. But I do think it's pretty interesting that, like we have more and more moments in Trump two point zero where you absolutely have no idea who's lying, because there's as much a likelihood that Donald Trump said it's okay that she ran it by him, right. But what I thought was really interesting about those hearings, and I want to talk about it
for a minute. And I actually talked to some members of Congress about this because I was curious what.
The reasoning was.
They kept asking, Uh, there was a California congresswoman and then Jared Moskowitz this is the next day, and in the Congress there was this this California congresswoman said are you having sexual relationships with Corey Lewandowski? And it was interesting. She said, oh, this is tabloid gossip and.
Muttered it up slut shaving.
Yeah, but you know what, she didn't say.
That she's not doing it.
And then Jared Mosfoot's friend of the pod asked her again later on and said, here's an opportunity for you to set the record straight.
And again yeah.
Shot back, no denial, just said he's slutshaving her and it's nuts.
But here's an interesting thing. So she is refusing to perjure herself on this, yep. And it's interesting to me because like there are clearly people in this administration who perjure themselves all the time.
Right, we're about to see Pam Bondi held accountable for instancee they're bringing her back to the standard girl eying about.
Her exactly, So it's just interesting to me. And then also another interesting thing was and what we should have seen where it was really out of control was on Thursday, she had her husband sitting behind her and then she said he need to catch a flight, so he missed when the congress woman asked her if she was having sexual relationships with Coreyla Nandawski, I'm sure that Christy Nolmes husband is glad he wasn't there for that.
Well, it turns out Corey's very good at buying ads inside Trump media organizations for her. But yes, we have other fish to fry. Molly, he's not going.
To stay for the Marcoyne at dude is shockingly he's out.
Just now they said he's out yet, So Bai, we got to talk about a fellow named Congressman Tony Gonzalez who we've been talking about a bud share for those who aren't up to speed. He was texting a staffer wooed things at one in the morning, making sexual advances
to her that she lit herself on fire. Now fast forward to that he has dropped out and this leaves one Brandon Herreraz, the nominee in this district, who brags about having a really good copy of mind cuff, goose steps and videos to white power songs, all sorts of just unhinged white power Nazi stuff.
First, let's talk about Gonzales because this is really important. The entire Gonzales staff basically had a mutiny, at least in that district office where the woman killed herself. You had other staffers talking about how he wouldn't show up at the office and how she had shown her coworkers the texts. The texts were really seemed as if they were really bordering on sexual harassment. So they may have had an affair, but then it did certainly seem as if there was a lot of one sided stuff there.
She did light herself on fire, which is pretty awful, and he did try and spin this as like he went on a conservative podcast. He said that his wife and God had forgiven him. I think that this is a really I think it's it's worth talking about this for a second because there are a bunch of MAGA members of Congress who are women, and that's MTG.
Is out now.
But Nancy Mace, Lauren Boepert, who said that they would start ethics investigations on Gonzales if he did not resign now again or he did not drop out from running again. I think that what's interesting here is, look, Mike Johnson, who is supposedly super Christian and super religious and cares about the family, will not tell Tony Gonzalez to drop out. That's because Republicans have a one seat majority and Mike Johnson still wants to be the Speaker of the House.
But he can't say that because he's just such a hypocrite. So he's sort of saying, well, it's up to him. And you know, it's really watching Mike Johnson defend Trump. It is at real everything Trump touches die stuff. But also these women have decided some of these maga women are so sort of mad, Mike Johnson. You'll remember that Annie Carney reporting from earlier this year. They're mad like they're not on they're not heads of committees. These women
have really been sort of sidelined. We're seeing Staphonic is not running again. A lot of women are trying to get out of the House. You know, there's only so much sexism and misogyny you can practice on the women in your party before they start to push back. And so as much as this Gonzales story is a terrible story, it also shows a little bit that the women of the House Maga Caucus are actually sort.
Of pushing back.
Which we shouldn't congratulate them for it by any stretch of the imagination, but I do think it's noteworthy.
I think it's another thing where we keep seeing that the actions of this party's of morality keep shipping away at its core and falling off some people.
Yeah, but it's also like they thought they could take the women back to the nineteen fifties, but actually, like some of that is just to die, is so cast there's nothing you can do hard agree.
I want to take us back to when Jimmy Carter supposedly ruined his presidency with the Debbie Downer speech. How do you think that compares to when Trump is asked if Americans should worry about I read retaliating on US soil? He said, I guess, like I said, some people will die.
You know, for you and I who came of age during the Gulf War two and also GO four one, I mean I lived through nine to eleven, and there's something so incredibly disturbing about a president who's basically like, you know, if it happens again, it happens again. We should be so focused on preventing this kind of thing. It's kind of disturbing to have a president who just seems as if he's kind of agnostic to the possible killing of Americans. You know, I like what he says.
By the way, I'm not convinced the quote is better. We're six days into this war. You know, Donald Trump has spent six billion dollars because the war costs more than a billion dollars a day, somewhere between one and two. Trump responds, So he's talking to everybody in the world because he's trying to sell the war now that he's already in it. A lot of people would have tried to sell the war before. But okay, he said, I guess, but I think they're worried about that all the time.
We think about it all the time. We planned for it, but you know, we expect some things. The longer quote is even worse. Like I said, some people will die. President added, when you go to war, some people will die. You know, who's not serving in this war, anyone with their last name Trump or vance yep I mean, just to watch them completely stop pretending at all to be for anything but the worst possible stuff is amazing.
Some lastly, Molly, the Trump administration says, it's just doesn't have the time to get to these terra free funds for US pleabs.
Yeah.
I want to point out the Supreme Court said no more, you can't do the tariffs. They are illegal, and so they're supposed to issue refunds. And we have all these big companies that are now suing the Admin for refunds, and Trump is like, sorry, we can't comply with the order to start terraf refunds.
Why not? Why not? Here's my question, why the fuck not?
Where there's no will, there's no way.
A key tension in the refunds saw guys emerged. It should not be a saga. The court wants to move fast and get refunds out the door, but the government Donald Trump, They're going to send you the check, but they're not going to sign it. We have exciting news over at our YouTube channel. The third episode is out now from our series Project twenty twenty nine, are reimagining where we examine what went wrong with democrats approach to policy and how we can correct it and deliver changes
for the American people. The first episodes dove into campaign finance, reform, antitrust, and regulation. Our newest episode is on how we solidify reproductive rights for women. We talk to the smartest names in the field, like Abortion every Day is Jessica Valenti, the Center for Reproductive Rights Nancy Northam, UCLA is oh Mary Ziegler, and the gout Macher Institute's Kelly Badden. Republicans were prepared for when they got the levers of power.
Democrats need to be too.
So please head over to YouTube and search Molly John Fast Project twenty twenty nine or go to the Fast Politics YouTube channel page and you'll find it there. Help us spread the word. Ali Belchi has an anchor from US. Now.
Welcome, Welcome, Ali Beauchi.
This is fun. Got to be with you here. I don't really have you on my show this. I've got to be in the receiving end. If I've done anything wrong to you, You're going to fix that right.
Now, certainly not.
You know, I'm a fan of yours, and actually this is the moment. You know, there are so many things that you and I are both interested in that are happening at this very moment, and I think we have to I think we should start with the Epstein files being back.
This is Trump.
I'm sure you saw this, but this Trump news that Trump had put I mean, this is just senior Department. Justice Department publishes documents with sexual allegations against Trump.
They're back, yes, yeah. And here's the thing I think about this, Admitisi's Trump administration from the Department of Justice on is all about loyalists, right, Like people have to be reminded. Pam Bondy was Donald Trump's lawyer. Todd Blanch was Donald Trump's layer. And the thing people need to think about is that when you're somebody's lawyer, your legal obligation to them and to your attorney client privilege never ends.
If they stop being your lawyer, they're still they cannot tell the public things that you've discussed with them.
Number one.
Number two, this is why you don't have your lawyers do this stuff, because this will all come out one day. It may not come out during the Trump administration. It may come out after the midterm elections when the Trump administration realizes they're in real trouble. It may come out when Todd blanch and Pam BONDI realized that they do not have the protections against prosecution for lying under oath that Donald Trump has. But it will come out one day.
There will be a real administration, a real Department of Justice that will get to the bottom of this, and they'll get all the documents and they will actually speak to the actual witnesses and the truth will come out. My concern, Molly is that as I cover this war in Iran, I'm thinking to myself, is this the Epstein War?
Like?
Is all that happens now a way to get you to stop talking about Epstein on a daily basis?
And you know, this is my theory of the case. Right, It's a war without a cause. It's sort of wag the dog, except.
It's a real place.
If you actually had a cause, you could say, well, we needed to actually have this war with Iran. We're that we're doing it now timing wise, But no one's made the case. No one has actually made the case. And on Saturday night, the first bodies will be brought back from Iran, the first American bodies, six bodies, I think five will be brought four or five will be brought back On Saturday night, and that's where it's going
to start to hit home. I think we become numb to this with all the death in Afghanistan and in Iraq. But the fact is you're now going to see that people are dying for you not really being able to articulate a reasons for this war. And I remind people it's not that long ago this administration led about stuff.
Right.
They said that Venezuela was about drugs, of that's all.
They said.
It was about pentanyl. There's no pedanel that comes from Venezuela. Then they just generally said about drugs. But the boats that they were bobbing were headed not to America and couldn't get to America anyway. And then within an hour of that thing, Donald Trump comes on and says it's about the oil. Right, So they lied to us.
Then I don't know what the story is.
This oil is just something else.
What is this war about?
You're not supposed to say this, but Marco Rubio did say it was because of Israel.
Which is too. Also weird are we renting.
Out our army now to our military whoever wants it?
And it's an insane thing to say.
I mean, even if it's true, so much of American life is built around the idea that it's not true.
But that was a shocking moment to me.
And then he walked it back, and then he got mad at the journalist who asked the question, because ultimately their enemy is not themselves, and they're shifting up explanations for things, but instead the media that reminds them of it.
And one thing that was very notable that flew under the radar this week is that like Trump, Netta, who's got legal trouble and continuing to be the Prime Minister of Israel, like Trump, is his best inoculation about against getting into any sort of trouble. He's supposed to have an election this year, it hasn't been called yet, which is a little bit weird. And wars generally get people
to rally around the flag. But there has been some pressure on the Israeli president Hertsog to harden Netaniaho and he won't do it. So Trump threatened Hertzog with some sort of personal sanctions on him for not part of I mean talking. This is what a weird story. Donald Trump's involved in internal Israeli politics now to protect Neataniel like the world's upside.
Down, right, And I want to get to your idea of rallying around the flag because I think it's important to realize that this war is a war. I mean, I don't know what it's a warrior, yeah, and it's dragging in different you know, the Emirates are now involved the UAE. I think it's very hard to keep this contained.
Is as unpopular as anything has ever been. You know, I don't know who said this first, but Rick Wilson always says it to me, which is, your war will never be more popular than it is on day one hundred percent.
Think about Afghanistan. That was a real rally around the flag. Someone had attacked America and so America was attacking someone else.
And if people signed.
Up who weren't going to be in the military, people died, and they still thought it was a cause worth fighting. Then he get I rack a little less clear, but the Bush administration made some effort to legally do what it needed to do and sell it to Congress and sell it to the UN.
Right they went.
He went to the UN two times to sell this war. Then he got this, and it's not popular to start with I was doing some looking at some polling the other night. It was about about fifty nine percent of Americans. I think that Donald Trump should have gotten authorizations from Congress if he wanted to have a war, which maybe it would have gotten.
Maybe he wouldn't have sixty forty issues.
Right, And remember thirty five is Donald Trump's floor.
Right.
We can literally set fire to people and they will still thirty five percent of the population will still support him. So very few people support this to start with. There's no rallying round the flag because nobody understands why we're doing this war. And they don't get more popular as body bags come home and costs mount, and it's not just your gas prices oils up fifteen percent, so your
gas prices will be up fifteen percent. Unlike tariff sware company might say I'm going to save my customers from this because they might go away. I might pass it on, I might not pass it on. There's confusion about that. There's no confusion about gas prices ever, boil those up. Gas prices go up.
End of story. And then there's a third thing.
Afghanistan and I Rock cost us different estimates between four and eight trillion dollars, which is a very big part of our national debt now because it keeps mounting because of interest. Right, so we're still paying the ice for those two wars that maybe some people understood and maybe some people supported.
Nobody supports this one.
And it's between one and two billion dollars a day so far that it's costing us.
Yeah that I was.
Going to say at least a billion dollars a day. So we're six days in or really and then the straits of Hermuth, which hadn't been now is blocked. That's twenty to twenty five percent of worldwide.
Oil and gas.
Yeah, So there's a theory of the case that said, because we now know that Venezuela was about oil, if you Venezuela's got more oil reserves than anyone in the world, including Saudi Arabia. So if you can bring Venezuela into America's orbit. Remember, this was not about the people of Venezuela or democracy or anything else that was.
Actually see rodrigaz in there, correct.
So we'd have a puppet government in Venezuela, which is kind of annoying to the Venezuela and diaspora who actually won.
These guys ousted, so they are fault for having any faith in this administration.
Yes, so now you have in theory, you've got access to Venezuelan oil. So in theory, Iran blocking a fifth of the world's oil from getting through the straight of Horror moves is offset.
That's the theory.
The practice is that Venezuelan oil is for quality oil, and because their infrastructure is so degraded, it's going to take up to ten years to get that oil on the market. So if you wanted to do this and then ten years from now bomb Iran, you might actually say, you know what, Iran's got no leverage over anybody right now, That's just not true anymore. It runs for the moment, it runs, got this leverage of the straight of hor moves.
But the hilarious bit of all of this is that what Donald Trump has done is he's canceled all of these clean energy projects. So China has you know, solar and wind and all, and even nukes can do what we need with much less environmental cost. And also once you set up a solar point, you don't have to pay for it anymore.
That's correct.
So there's a lot of things going on.
But the other thing about China that's worth keeping in mind is we have sent these two strike carrier groups to Iran right to prosecute this war. One of them was in East Asia, and that was the security blanket for Taiwan that there is a strike carrier group. We could bring more in. But if China invades Taiwan, we've actually got we we got allies, and we have a military strength.
Now we moved it. Now it's gone.
Shannas might be sitting here thinking this is a good time to take over Taiwan.
Now what's America going to do.
They've got a war in Iran that they need all those terriers, and then they've got this war here. And by the way, a lot of that naval power in and around Iran is because of the Strait of Horror moves. America is the only naval power that can push back on Iran trying to mine the Straight of Horror Moves or send missiles across. It's twenty one miles at its narrowest point, so that's one channel this way and one channel the other way. Here's the problem with that. Those
aren't military ships. Those are ships carrying goods. And oil that has to be ensured. No one will insure you to go through a war zone. Lloyd's of London will, but it'll cost so much money that it's not worth it. It will be worth it. So these ships, it's like, Okay, maybe the American military is over here, the Iranian militaries over here, and the American military will cancel out the Iranian military as I sail my boat very slowly through
the Strait of horror moves. But how about I just don't because how about I don't want to die and I don't want my oil to all go into the ocean.
And that's a Venezuela problem too, is you have trouble convincing American companies that it's worth the risk correct starting a business there. Talk about that.
Well, remember, by the way, I just want to remind you all about Somalia all those years ago, right ten or fifteen years ago, with the Somali pirates were operating in the Red Sea, and then around there these are Somali pirates like these are guys on little bloat boats with small guns who can at best jimmy up the side of a boat and capture it, right and then that's not quite clear what they're going to do with that afterwards.
This is the Iranian military.
This is a country of ninety three million people that has to one hundred and fifty active tix, one hundred and fifty thousand active tubes proof and another three hundred and fifty that they can draw on in reserve. So a million troops on the ground. This is a massive army with a massive navy, navy and missiles. This is not from Ali pirates. Also the same situation with Venezuela,
we blockaded their oil. There was a sort of shadow fleet that was moving oil because Venezuela is technically blockaded. But the axis of resistance which we talk about with Iran and Russia and North Korea actually involves Venezuela. Venezuela was this node in that whole thing which has been lost. But for the moment, there's mayhem in this situation. As far as oil getting around the world, here's the interesting thing.
Most of Venezuela's oil was going to China. It's China, while it's got nuclear and solar and wind, also uses more oil than anyone else does and needs more oil at the moment because they can't. They can't get that oil. We may have just made things better for Iran because they've got it built in by for all the oil that China was getting from Venezuela. So this just doesn't seem like anyone thought this out very well.
And if they did, tell us right and clearly.
I mean, if we know one thing about Donald Trump, he's never two moves ahead.
He's really just right where he is.
We are also in a moment where US shipbuilding has been way behind, so all of a sudden, we need a navy that we don't really have, right because the shipbuilding has been into con.
Yeah, and it's a weird situation to be waging either war or needing a military presence in so many parts of the world as we currently do now. So we had these ships in Venezuela, then it took him a while. They sailed through the strikes through Gibraltar into the Mediterranean, which it can now be used for Iran. Then we took the Abraham Lincoln Strike Group, moved it into the Red seat, and then we've got this tension in Asia.
This would make sense if you're the non war president, right, you're the the FIFA beef prize winning president, the first one in history. You're a contender for the Nobel Prize of apparently until Maschado gave Donald Trump hurt no belt.
Now he has one. So now he's got one.
Like, this is a weird position to be in if you're this administration. Right, The administration says we're not doing forever war. We're not going to be the worst. Wow, we've got ruers and we don't have enough navy for all the wars we either are in or might need to be it.
The good news though, is FIFA is not going to ask for that prize back.
Correct, weirdest thing in the world.
That, Yeah, it made a prize, you get to keep I think the theory here, though, is that Trump. Why Trump, I think thinks he's successful is because he does these sort.
Of regime change.
Without regime change, you keep the regime in but you make it look like you're changing it.
But he can't do that, no, because it's really hard and really complicated. So Venezuela, there's a Venezuelan diaspora that would have been very supportive of Donald Trump getting rid of the community right, right, But he did it right and and Venezuelan society is many layers deep, because this was not only Maduro but as before that, So for decades it's been layers of everybody. So if you run a museum or a nonprofit in Venezuela, you are you are. Your fealty is to the party. That's just the way
it has to go. We learned this in We learned this in Iraq. Right that you you thought you decapitated the leader, but every institution in the country is people who are are like minded. So that's the problem in Iran. If you think Iraq was serious and you think Venezuela is mired, Iraq's way more complicated than.
That, right, because it's a religious state.
So it's two parts. It's the religious state where this is the prevalent of the pope. Right, it's it's the Iyatola is a religious leader thought to be divinely inspired, right, not like a president or prime minister. But on top of that, the significant or an equal weight of power in Iran is the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, which which is involved in business, it's involved in religion, it's involved in
state craft, it's involved in the military. So you could end up with a worse situation in Iran than you actually had. I'll remind you, and I have no love for the Iranian regime. They are murderous, they murder their own people. But we were actually in negotiations with them one time. We actually got to deal with them one time. We even might have been negotiating with them as recently as last Thursday one time. Yeah, there's some dispute as to what was going on. The Omanis and the Iranians
say that they were making progress. Steve whit Costs says they weren't.
And if you.
Can't trust a random real estate friend of Donald Trump's, who can.
Is What a world?
Right?
What a world in which we're we're trying to weigh who do I actually believe in this whole thing? But I will say I kind of believe the Omanis, who are the go betweens.
It's because they have no interest in lying about this.
In fact, they've been targeted by Iran now because they host an American base. So we had headroom, right, people in the State Department who think about these things state, we had headroom. We had more space to go before a war. A war really kind of needs to be your last choice. Unless you think you can prosecute it very effectively, and it's lightning strikes and it's power, and it's done. Namely the last war that that happened in
it just doesn't happen anymore. Russia thought it was going to be done in Ukraine in a week, if you recall, right, and we Donald Trump like it seems to be thinking about this, and Pete Hextas seems to be thinking about it like video game war. Yeah right, but this is not how this goes.
No, And I mean, and we haven't had and the drone stuff is really game changing. I want you to talk though about the jobs numbers, because these jobs numbers are bad.
Top us through them and explain what's going on.
So normally you should be creating one hundred and fifty thousand new jobs a month as your floor. Three hundred is what you need to do to sort of grow your economy, right, because we have more people dying or retiring than we have coming in. Now, we have the Saddin troblem where we've stopped immigration for all intents and purposes, or we've scared immigrants into not working, or whatever the case is. So you have a bigger problem. We locked
ninety two thousand jobs in February. Here's the rub. This will now be the fifth month in a year that we have lost GOG. But often it's because of revisions that come after the fact. So on the job's day you get the word that you created all these new jobs, and then you know months later or the next month you find out revise. Now we've lost jobs for five months.
That gets recession bells ringing in my head. So if you're going to have a recession, then you want to make sure that your interest rates are under control, that your economic growth is under control, that people don't have to pay more for things than they should i e. Tariffs Right, it's not doing the right thing. We haven't had a recession for a while. They are cyclical, they come around, and now we're setting ourselves up for things.
The one thing that tends to offset recessions sometimes is war, because we make the world's munitions right. So in fact, Iran sends a missile up the interceptor, whether it's a Patriot or a Thad, is an American made missile. But ever since the war in Ukraine started, we have been running our foundries which are here in America. Three shifts twenty four hours a day. You go to foundery in Pennsylvania, free shifts. So we're ammunition is running out around the world,
Missiles are running out around the world. Fads and patriots are running out around the world. We are building all of them. We build all the planes. All those Arab countries that are fighting the war with Iran, they fly at fifteens and f sixteens American made planes. So yes, we could offset some of this. In fact, our unemployment numbers would be higher because we actually have a wartime economy right now that we have so many people building arms. It may not be enough in this case. So Donald
Trump might be in a real pickle come November. We might have a prolonged war or something going on in Iran. I think he'd like it to be over. And now he says eight weeks, We're.
Not eight weeks. And he may have a recession.
He's got a wildly unpopular government that the Zaxteme thing doesn't go away for him. Yes, we saw for the first time somebody bowing to pressure Donald Trump getting rid of Christy. No, I don't think it's the last one you're going to see. So now not looking good.
Will you come back anytime you want. I love talking to you.
Dave Weigel is a reporter at setafore Welcome, Welcome, Dave.
It's good to be here. For having me.
This story is actually like become a really big story. So Texas is the first primary of the midterms, you know, along with North Carolina and also Arkansas.
Yes, Arkansas. Everyone forgets Arkansas. There is a Democratic gain in the state legislative race, but I didn't know any reporters who went there. Whoever they were going to get one my case, tex Ethiopian Barbecue in Dallas.
Right, So three primaries and this primary, this Senate seat is a really interesting primary. And I want you to first talk about the Democratic part of the primary because it's interesting but it's settled. Talk us through sort of the forces at play there, because it's pretty interesting situation.
In the Democratic primary. I don't probablyn't even the entire history of Democrats in Texas. They've not want anything in decades. And Richardson, yeah, and richards and then there was a one twenty nine to zero up wins Street.
They've come close, batok close.
Ken Paxson, who's the Republican Attorney general running per Senate. He almost lost in twenty teen, but they don't lose, and so James Tallerico, who was a rising star in the party. He flipped a suburban Austin seat North Austin Williamson County in twenty eighteen and got reelected. He was making noise that he would run again. Colin Alright, who lost his twenty twenty four bit against tag Cruz, was
running again. It was them for a minute, and then at the very end of filing, Jasmine Crockett got into the race.
Colin Allred got out.
Became a two person Democratic race, which actually was very helpful to the party. I'm not trying to be the pr man for Colin Alright, but he saved the Democrats from a runoff by dropping out. He ran for his old seat again, and the dynamic was that there were two very well known Democrats, very big followings.
I just want to point something out in Texas, if you don't get fifty percent, you have to go to a runoff, even if you definitively win.
Yeah, if you get forty nine point eight percent and the next person gets fifteen percent, you stole a runoff and people have lost in that condition before, so it became me sprint for three months between tall Rico and Crockett, and he had already staffed up a very big campaign. He had a very big social media following that from TikTok to old fashion magazines and to TV. Crockett had a very big following too, different kind of following, different
kind of reputation and different argument. They had the same policies. They both wanted to break up Ice. They wanted to get rid of Christie Ome, which happened. That was one of the big I noticed when I was a tallerco his biggest applause line was in peach Christine Nome, So he needs a new one. He ran just a better campaign, but also more of an argument that he can flip general election voters. But I don't want to downplay how well Crockett did.
She did actually much better than the polling showed she was going now better.
Well, So she she led in the polls that people knew she was and then she trailed at the end, but she got more than a million votes. If you told any Texas Democrat in December JASMC. Crockett's going to get a million votes, they'd assume she wins. Talla Rico actually expanded the electorate very effectively in Latino areas and in suburbs.
She crushed him in cities anying were anywhere with.
Black voters, really so East Texas, Dallas and Parthy Houston. But she did not expand behind her base. But she turned she They were not wrong. Either of them were lying. She said she could turn out her base, and she did. He said he could find new voters, and he did.
I mean, and that is sort of like a lesson from Trump a little bit, which is Trump won by growing the electorate. That's why they were secret Trump voters was because they were people. They were ones and twos, low frequency voters and that you couldn't pull for. And so what crockett theory of the case was that she could over turn out her base the way that Trump did right where he got those Hispanic men. And tell Rico's case was that he could grow the electorate in a different way.
That was the case they were making.
They were also in some campaigns the Cans don't like to talk about strategy. These candids did talk about strategy. They articulated, like you said, and tell Rico thought there'd be a lot of people who voted for Trump or not, so he wasn't saying people who don't vote.
And this is this.
Is something that Democrats have had several cycles of unlearning. There was a very popular idea that this pool of non voters around the country, if you just gave him an aspiring message, they might turn out or not. I want to be two patronized. He told them like, we're gonna give you Medicare for all, then they might turn out. And data after twenty twenty four, I've not seen this contradicted,
but it's it's kind of blue rose. It's the more centrist electability part of the Democrats have done this, but I haven't seen progressive contradict It was no actually, non voters know who don Trump is, would have voted for him. If it was Australia and every person had to vote legally or face a fine, Trump would one buy more. And Talerico was out there saym Matt, I would say that because set it up.
But I was saying, they're just a lot.
Of your neighbors who've stopped listening to Democrats, and you, the person of the audience, maybe haven't talked to them.
And I found this covering him.
There'd be people who were voting for him, and I'd ask where they got their their news, which is a very enlightening question. Typically, and they would talk about their family members, who they avoid them on Facebook because they'll send them crazy in their view, crazy things, well probably crazy things, you know, like AI generated stuff to make their point. Or they would tell them that Republicans rel is to tell them they can't be a Catholic because
they're Democrats and Democrats love abortion. And they were recepted this idea. Oh well, not just my relatives, but maybe there's more people who want a less combative candidate, somebody who talks about his faith all the time. Now, that was not the crocket. Armen Crockett was making more of
the old style. Everyone can see how bad things are under Trump, and I am such a charismatic receipts carrying this the shield trum, but receipts receives carrying a candidate that I will go out there and destroy Republicans with the power of my arguments. That was also pretty compelling for people, just one hundred thousand or so less fewer people. But those were the two cases they made, and that matters.
I think because Republicans were ready to run against either they wanted Crockett, they were ready get a run against either of them because they know and I'd talked to I'm talking about this. He's a very liberal Presbyterian. He has used the teachings of Jesus to talk about trans writes, non binary nature of God, how many genders there are, white supremacy, just ways that if you were growing a candidate lab for Texas, you wouldn't have him say that stuff.
And he actually had.
They dropped it.
He dropped out the primary. There was a more conservative Democrat in the primary who wasn't already who hit him on that, and when he got in the race and then he couldn't raise any money, he dropped out, not saying he was more electable. But the Republicans are saying, you might think this guy is going to appeal to your cousin.
We think that he will not.
We're going to make it him so famously liberal that none of that will matter. And the Tallery argument is he's already has one for it, which is corporate media wants you to be divided on stupid things and ignore the fact that they're wrecking the country from inside.
You know what, I want you to do a minute on all of the incumbents who lost in Texas. Chip Broy's going to run off, but there's also Al Green. I think Al Green's going to run off too. But just talk about the non power of incumbents.
Yeah, well, most incumbents got renominated, but two kinds of people who lost. One were one FETO type I guess are the people who were in districts that Republicans redrew and forced them into with their colleagues.
That's how most Jerry Manderin works.
That's Julie Johnson in Dallas and Christian Menafie and Al Green in Houston. Kalinad Red dropped out Senate, Rays started running again for this Dallas seat, and he ran ahead of Johnson.
That's a member of member race.
Same thing. In Houston. Green did better than some people expected. He actually he did worse than Houston, did better in the suburbs where he I think was better known from his I think protesting every state union that Trump part of it tried to be.
Green is also isn't He's seventy eight years old.
She is, I think a little bit younger than that, but he is in his late seventies, and this is this is another issue, probably a beau time to get into.
There are a number of not.
Just Democrats, but Congressional Black Caucus members who are refusing to retire at a furry advanced stage. I mean Maxie Waters is the oldest in her in her late eighties at this point. But that was part of the issue in the race. The way Green flipped it was that crypto packs came in for Christian Memicry.
He's seventy eight years old.
Seventy eight, you were right, Okay, yeah, wow, And it became pretty competitive. They're gonna have to spend more money for a safe seat. The other kind of people who lost were Republicans who had who had crossed Trump and I want to rub the money. And you mentioned ship Roy Dan Crenshaw, who was given you Yeah, he was given new conservative precincts where if you were in those areas you were less likely to have voted for Dan
Crenshaw in the past. You never had Maybe you weren't were not aware of his media profile which he built up for the years.
And kind of had faded.
He had a podcast, he had rallies, he had all this stuff to make him himself a conservative, but not necessarily one hundred percent mega figure. His challenger, Steve Toath, was a state a very conservative state senator who ran against Crenshaw with Tucker Carlson argument that he is a not Tucker's words, but it's been used by other people.
I Patrick McCain, that he's a neo.
Con he doesn't love America first, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And Carlson actually gave tothe a long interview on his show. I guess he only does hour long plus interviews. But I don't know if Crenshaw was ever ahead of that race, because it was a landslide defeat. He lost everything that was in Toat's old Senate district. Well, he's the first member for Congress to lose renomination and handily and without a scandal or something, just for ideological reasons.
I would add to this list Tony Gonzalez, who was going to be gone, a congressman from West Texas. Republicans readrew his seat thinking they would be easy for him to win, and then I don't know how familiar listeners are with his scandal.
Yeah, Tony Gonzalez had an affair with the staffer, maybe sexually harassed her too.
She set herself on fire and died.
Yes, So it's a really good summary. Always was taking you much longer than say what was happening. Anyway, He already was in trouble because he'd voted for gun control legislation after Viovalde massacre, which was in his district. He was facing a rematch with the Second Amendment influencer, which is a way to say this. You know this, this YouTuber who shoots guns off and talks about his love for World War two history, not just our side of World War Two, but up at the other side. And
he was already competitive, and then he beat it. He beat him in the first round. They were going to run off. Gonzales is not going to run for a new term, So this guy, Branda Herreras is going to be in Congress. That's the way Texas works. You pull out of your reelection the election's over on the margins. That will probably hurt John Cornyn a little because this was one of the parts of the state in the prime Mury that Cornyan did best in against Kem Paxton.
And there's not going to be a Republican primary for Congress anymore. Gonzal' is not trying to save himself, so there's going to be a new very right wing Republican nominee in West Texas. Gonzale was saying I could win and Democrats couldn't. But this is something I saw all over Texas. It is very tough to convince Republicans who if you're forty five, you can't remember a Democrat winning in your state. Very tough to convince them. Oh, this is the year when it's all going to fall apart.
I want you to talk about this. Cornan Paxton race, Paxton trumpier than Trump right was impeached.
I would love me to.
Just talk about for two seconds where he went around to state senators and threatened them.
Tell us about that, well.
State legislators of both kinds. So Taxa has been unfailable to his wife, accused of bribery by former employees of his office, and he was impeached. And of course Texas Republicans run the state legislature, so his impeachment included a lot of Republicans voting against.
Him and his wife, Angela.
Yes, his wife a state senator, and he was acquitted in the Senate and got revenge on the Republicans vote against him. I was in the state for a little while. In twenty twenty four, he and conservative donors went back into these districts, including the Speaker of the House who won but then retired. He was retiring now, and their argument was basically, these are fake conservative, These fake conservatives
went against Ken Paxton. They went against this ally of Donald Trump, who helps him sue to overturn the twenty twenty election. I would just say that I keep talking about Trump and MAGA, but also Paxton's one of the conservative attorneys general who will act immediately when conservatives, let's say the turning point wing of the party won him to So you want to shut down abortion clinics, who he will sue. You want to ask hospitals for information about transgender patients, he will do that.
He'll get the information.
You want to sue media matters because they are writing unkind things about.
Elon Musk, He'll do that too. Him.
He was one of the very active conservative movement ags and he has a base from that. He did not run a very good primary campaign. He did the bare minimum, but he's still got forty. Talk about Cornan, Well, yeah, Cornyn is well, he's a little bit younger than Al Green. He'd bilb eighty if he serves his full term. But he's going for a fifth term. The party had been moving away from him in a way that you've talked about and everyone's talked about. And he was the former
leader of Republicans Senate efforts and they like him. He's their colleague. JHN Thune likes him. Trump was different. He had criticized Trump in between his presidencies, but it wasn't out there casting. You know, Lincoln Schafeye votes right. He just was not liked Ted Cruz rushing in and taking point on some conservative cause. He's been somebody that the movement wanted to beat for a while. And this primary
was the most expensive for any incumbent Republican senator in history. Now, remember the Tea Party movement helped beat a couple of Republican incumbents a decade ago, decade plus ago, a lot of money in that. This was more than eighty million dollars spent by mostly the Senate Leadership Fund its affiliates, the super Pac. Donnell started at one Cornyn and portray
him as a as a true magic conservative. Two to go after Paxton very personal terms, and three to go after Wesley Hunt, this congressman from Houston who got into the race kind of famously, and I think Notice has good stuff about this. Famously just got tired of paying congress God give it a safe seat and just was bored and wanted to either move into the administration or be a senator.
They beat him up. That was very helpful.
So what they wanted to do, and this has been playing out since Tuesday night, what the PAC.
Wanted to do.
Corners reporters want to do is just make sure that Cornan got more votes than Paxton the primary, so they could go back to Trump and say Paxton is not going to win the primary. If you want to be a winner, since we're going to spend money for corn anyway, just go endorse Cornyn and this thing and Trump has given. Trump has said he will make an endorsement. We don't know who the bet is that he will be talked into endorsing Corny, and he's done stuff like this before.
In New Hampshire, Johnson UNU to the former senator, not the form of governor he's running. He had criticized Trump throughout his his presidency. Scott Brown has run for US Senate and Brown is an ally, and Trump was convinced to endorsement to Johnson Dodo.
I just want to talk about Paxton for a second, because Paxton is super nutty. He told Real America Voice he's not going to drop out even if Trump endorses Cornyan again, who knows.
But then he.
Tweeted that the only way he'll drop out is if the if they kill the filibuster and pass the Save Act, which there's about a million reasons why that will be undoable, the votes, etc. But a lot of people think that's a political move talk us through that.
Yes, well, he's doing that because he wants to draw attention to the fact that the Save Act, which Donald Trump wants, is not passing, and he wants to tell Trump, you send me to the Senate and would I would vote to get rid of the filibuster to do what you want, which is something that.
Trump asks for quite often. Trump did this in his first term.
Hey we're not getting something through, I'm going to tweet the which pear of the philibuster reporters would go to Mitch McConnell, Ben John Thune now and they would say, we're not going to do that. It's just this endless or boroughs of react quotes about what Republicans are going to say about not getting rid of the philibuster. They're not going to get rid of it. Conservatives are tired of this. The turning point wing of the party would
love and this. Mike Lee, couple other Republicans who flipped because they were for the filibuster. Now they're for the talking filibuster, which is their form Democrats wanted years ago. They want to get rid of it, and they have the confidence that it's not going to happen. I don't
think the cynical conservatives are incorrect here. There are people like Susan Collins who have said, yes, I support the Save Act, I support citicismship check requirements for voting, and and everything else in that bill.
But asked them if we're the filibuster, they won't do it.
They just want to be on record that they're for passing this bill, and Conservats are sick of that.
They are like, no, that's what's.
The difference between not supporting it at all and saying you're going to support in some way that won't happen. That's what Paxton's trying to get to send me to the Senate.
And I'm going to be on Mike Lee. I'm not going to be a Jhon Cornyn.
Yeah. So interesting.
I think of you as like very smart and very on the ground and like that you see everything that's going on.
What do you think the chances are?
And I know this is a really mean question because it's like asking candidate to raise their hand, but I'm going to do it anyway.
What do you think the chances are the Dems can flip the Senate?
I would say twenty percent. I think they need to buy all terrible economic numbers today war in a run. There's a world like two thousand and six where their bottom falls out of them because people are so tired of how they're governing thing.
Because that's the world where I think Democrats win the Senate.
But twenty percent is pretty good. You think Alaska is the key to that. They have to pick up everything right Alaska, Ohio.
It basically be flip North Carolina, flip Main hold Michigan, hold Georgia, flip Alaska, flip one of something else flipping three seats. Losing nothing gets them fifty seats in the Senate. That prevents a lot of Republicans do but they would still control the floor of the gabbles. Let's say there's a Supreme Court opening, Replicans still do it. One more person and they most often mentioned Iowa, Ohio, and Texas.
One more win would mean that they control the Senate and they can block Trump for the rest of the two.
And the most likely movement that is Ohio.
Right, But this is the thing, and Republicans will say, and they're self interested in saying so that if Paxton is the nominee against tall Rico, then they think Texas could flip. But you can hear they're self interested how
they're attacking right now. And I was trying to say this before when describing the primary, that Republicans will tell you that they want to run against Crockett, they were ready to run against tall Rico, saying that he's a woke liberal, fake Christian, et cetera, et cetera, he's actually evil. I've seen a couple Republicans say that because he's pro abortion, they're doing that. They're saying he's kind of a liberal
whimp who we can beat easily. At the same time, they're trying to convince Trump that John Corny's the only guy who can beat him. It is not coherent, but you do not need to prove with an algebraic equation to Trump. This is how it's going to happen. You just need to be in the room, make the best sale, and get him to say something that's hard for him to take back.
That's what they're trying to do.
Just please say enough in the room with Trump that he decides that he needs to endorse a corner. That is the whole game there. Republicans do think Paxton versus tall Rica. So even though they're attacking now, if Paxton's a nominee, it'd have some trouble raising money.
To Tylerico is a good candidate.
They could lose it so that I would say that would become the fourth likeliest thing to flip after Alaska.
Wow, thank you, thank you, thank you.
Dave, thank you so much.
No mo.
Jesse Cannon, so Molly, we got bury you louder Milk a character I feel like just shows up kind of as a cameo from season to season. He wants to go after charges for Cassidy Hutchinson if you remember from the January sixth hearings, Yes, I.
Saw that, and I'm not surprised. Very louder Milk, you'll remember Barry louder Milk being the member of Congress that Mikey Cheryl came on this podcast and said, was remember giving tours.
I do remember this. Yep.
Yeah, Look, Cassidy Hutchinson is this very young girl who worked in MAGA who came out and testified against McCarthy. Like it's just an insane thing to do, but you know, this is what they're doing. They're trying to target people. But I do think it's interesting they've had so little success targeting people. I mean, it's just you know, yeah, she's twenty nine years old. I've met her before. She's really a sweet girl. But you know, they want to
scare people. They want to prevent people from speaking about this.
Admin.
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