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 just eight percent of United States adults and eighteen percent of Republicans back taking control of Greenland. We have such a great show for you today as the world churns own. Andy Leeby steps by to talk
about Donald Trump's more on the American people. Then we'll talk to former mayor of Chicago and Obama White House Chief of Staff Rama Manual about how the DNC messed up and how they can win the midterms. But first the news.
Someone we've heard Vice President just dance fans say things like that ICE officers are immune to prosecution, and Steven Miller decided to take it the full full end of basically saying ICE officers could do whatever they want and they will be pardoned is quite quite bad and like something that's going to lead to very bad outcomes, but most of all, also something that's going to continue to make them very unpopular.
Yeah, basically this is what Stephen Miller said, and he said it on television because so much of this is performative to all ICE officers who have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties. By the way, they have qualified immunity. Qualified immunity is not the same as federal immunity. It doesn't necessarily mean that you can do whatever you want. If anyone lays a hand on you or tries to stop you or tries to obstruct you, they are committing
a felony. Also not necessarily true, because it's not how many of this works. You have immunity to perform your duties. And no one knows city official, no state official, no illegal alien, no leftist agitator, or domestic insurrectionists can prevent you from fulfilling your legal obligations and duties. That's not true. That's absolutely not true. And the Apartment of Justice has made clear that an official crosses the line into obstruction
into criminal conspiracy against you. Says are against ICE officials, the officers, they will face justice. That is not correct. That is, they have qualified immunity the what police do too. And also Stephen Miller has now he sees that these ICE agents are getting a lot of pushback for what they're doing, and he sees that this polling is not popular. And because he's Steven Miller and because Trump two point zero is this insane mechanism where they just go full authoritarian.
He's just doubling down on it. He's saying, do whatever you want, do as much as you want. What's going to happen here is what happened in Minnesota, but worse right, they're going to do worse. They're going to hurt more people, and they're going to kill more people, and there's going to be more of this until the Trump administration stops doing it, and they're not going to stop doing it on their own. And I think that's what we have
to understand here. Like we always say, like Republicans need to stand up to them, and people say, well, they're not going to stand up to them, okay, But until they do so, this continues. And so maybe they don't feel like standing up to them, maybe the Supreme Court doesn't want to say no Trump, that's enough. But until they do, it just gets worse and worse and worse.
And we are not even done with your one. So that's what's so stupid about this whole fucking thing is that you can say, oh, Republicans are cowards, They're never going to stand up to him. They are cowards for sure, no one's arguing with that. But until they do, it's just gonna get worse and worse and worse. So like, until Tucker Carlson and every dipshit on Fox News says you got to stop shooting people in the face, it's
not gonna stop. So again I implore you, as a listener to this podcast, like all of us need to be talking to our representatives, especially the Republican ones, and saying, look, man, you gotta tell him it's not okay to have a gestapo going through Minnesota, ripping special education teachers out of their cars and breaking windows because they're fighting against some enemy that doesn't exist. I mean, that's how we got here. We are not a country at war, right, Immigration is
a net negative now or a zero. This is not a country that needs a secret police force. This is an authoritarian who's using a secret police force to punish democrats. I mean, the only reason they're in Minnesota and not somewhere else is because of that dipshit Nick Shirley, who had that dumb piece about fraud that had happened two years ago where people were already in jail.
Yeah, it really is sad since the second Dick Shirley's journalism has stood up to Eddie Rigger. We've seen that it fell apart. Soboley Representative Seth Moulton, who is primary ing Senator Ed Markey in the far left set a seat of Massachusetts, has introduced ICE to funding bill and he's calling the issue shut down worthy. What do you make of this?
He's right, they should shut down the fucking gummery over Ice.
They should.
I agree, the spending package right now gave ICE seventy five billion dollars and they're funded through twenty twenty nine. You know who's not funded through twenty twenty nine, anyone else? I mean, this is just fucking madness. They are doing a reparable harm to our communities, to our country, and Republicans should abse fucking lutely shut down the government over this bullshit. One hundred percent. Malton said, the one beautiful bill nearly triples ICE budget. ICE's budget at a time
when American families are losing their health insurance. He didn't quite say it like that, but it's true. And he said, we want to extend ACA premium tax credits. They shouldn't be lapsing now again. I think a lot of them have already lapsed, and I think that there's not going to be a way to save that. But the thing that we do know is we can shut down this seventy five billion dollars that's going to ice. And if they shut down the government, that's the first to do it.
And you know, you may not see that on CBS News, that is true.
So I'm thinking a lot about the platform formerly known as Twitter, known as X and it's Ai Robot Croc who this week awone has had reports that suggest both Australia and the UK and Canadian governments are going to ban X because Groc keeps undressing underage girls and things like that and there's no guardrails on it, and that is by design. It keeps turning into a white supremacist.
In fact, it did it twenty seven times. Because Elon thinks this is based and with that are very questionably sober. Department of warhead Pete Hegsith has decided they should turn Grock over to run the Pentagon and do analysis.
Yeah, by the way, Elon mash he has head to free reign on our government. And I think it's important. Like when Elon is always like, oh, there's fraud in the government. Like you worked in the fun government. Doje cut lots of government contracts. So the idea that he just needs more time to go back into the government and fuck Moore shit up is pretty hilarious to make.
Let's talk about this. So Pete Hagsath, who is both a moron and very likely an alcoholic, has decided that the Elon Musk artificial intelligence chatbot white supremacist because that's how it's been trained. Grock will be integrated into the Pentagon's network, including classified systems, as a part of a broader initiative to help Republican donors. I'm sorry to initiate
and incorporate AI technology across the military. Speaking at SpaceX, which is headquartered in South Texas, which has a governor who will do anything Donald Trump wants. His name is Greg Abbott. Heigsas said, groc will go live inside the Department of Defense this month and will join Google's generitive AI engine. There are so many reasons why this could
end in disaster. We just have to hope that the grown ups at the US military are giving Pete hag Sath the blunt knife and the kitty spoon and not letting anywhere near the nukes.
Oh god, so stupid.
It's very stupid. Speaking of stupid, Senator Alissa Slotkin of the Great State of Michigan says that prosecutors are investigating her after a video about legal orders, just like what they went after Senator Mark Kelly for.
Yeah, so we know this to be true because they did this to Mark Kelly. And if there's one thing we know about this administration, it's they're just going to do it to everyone.
The other thing we know is they're going to send somebody very incompetent after them aka Judge box of Wide Piro.
Yes, she found out an inquiry and from the office of Jeanine Piro. Again, it's worth remembering Donald Trump. He yelled at his people for not doing enough for him, and then the next day Judge of Wine started investigating the chairman of the FED. She started investigating Lissa Slockin. This is how it goes right, Judge box of Wine wants to make her big boss happy. The good news is these people are morons, right, Like they're trying to
go after j Powell for a renovation that went over budget. Okay, j Pal I'm no fan of any of these people, but.
Are my favorite announcements. A renovation that would overbudget aka every renovation the history of America.
Also, when they were in the if you watch the video of the two of them going through the FED renovation, he goes and he goes, we'll cost three billion dollars. In j goes, no, two billion doors, and Trump goes, no, three billion dollars. And then he goes to see and Jay Powell looks and he goes, you added another building. I mean, these people they're just not smart. And thank God for that, because otherwise we would all be completely fucked. We We have exciting news over at our YouTube channel.
The second episode from our Project twenty twenty nine series is out now. It's a reimagining where we examined what went wrong with democrats approach to politics and how we can correct it and deliver changes to help people's lives. The first episode dove into the very sexy topic of campaign finance reform, and our second episode deals with an even sexier topic, antitrust and regulation. We look at how antitrust and regulation can protect American citizens and make America
thrive in an era of rampant corruption. And predatory crony capitalism. We talk to the smartest names in the field like Lena Kahan, Elvero Bedoya, Elizabeth Wilkins, and Doha Mecki. Republicans were prepared for when they got the levers of power. We need democrats 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 and find
it there and help us spread the word. Andy Levy is a host of As the World Churned, Andy Levy, Molly Jong Fast. You know how many Democrats there are in the House of Representatives two hundred and thirteen? Oh you're so smart? Seventy back the impeachment of Christy Nome or is we like to call her a st Barbie? Why doesn't everyone where are the other hundred and four day?
It was just like today or yesterday? This was brought up the impeachment, right.
Yeah, you know, it's let's give him time because it was only I mean, a woman was shot, a mother, thirty seven year old mother shot in the face three times, but that last week, I mean, how many moms have to get shot in the face before Christy gets impeached? Two three four.
I am not one to give the Democrats a pass. Molly.
You know that.
Seventy on day one, and I would assume probably still growing as we speak. I'll kind of take that. I mean, by the end of the week it should be d thirteen. It's unreal. I mean, they could literally spend every waking minute that they are in session doing nothing but impeaching various officials, and that would be a good use of their time for me.
That's right.
So much has to be done about what's going on now. But Christynome, RFK Junior. There's no point me even listing them because it's probably one name for each of the seventy members of Congress that right now have stagged on to this.
What I think is important about the Christynome impeachment, and what I think is important about impeachment in the House we're at large right now, is that Mike Johnson is a terrible speaker, and he has a one vote majority with four vacancies. There are two hundred and eighteen Republicans, two hundred and thirteen Democrats, four vacancies. Here is a moment where Democrats can get things passed as a dischurch petition, which means they put together something, they go around leadership,
and they make it happen. Could you see a discharge petition for impeaching Christy nom get through? I can. I can't because you'd see that the Obamacare premium expansion, they got seventeen Republicans to vote. So if you can get seventeen Republicans, if you can get five Republicans, and so I do think there's a chance. Now, look, it's going to go to the Senate. It's going to die at
the Senate. But you know what, when we talked about the Epstein stuff, right, the Epstein discharge petition, no one thought that was going to get to the Senate. And it got to the Senate and no one thought it was going to get through the Senate. It got through the Senate and everyone thought Donald Trump is going to veto it, and Donald Trump couldn't veto it. Now the DOJ is completely fucked and so they didn't release any of the stuff. But like, nobody could have seen that coming.
And that's why I think the makeup is so dysfunctional and what Trump is doing is so insane that I would not bet against an impeachment.
I would bet against it but but no, it is possible. I think the Obamacare subsidies. I don't know that that's an apt comparison, because that is stuff that I think people in the districts of these Republicans wanted that. They certainly weren't doing it because it was the right thing to do. They were doing it because they were worried about how it would play back home. I don't know that impeaching Christy Nome gets you that same you know, regardless of what the polling is on Ice, I don't
think it gets you the same thing. I think Epstein also falls more in that Obamacare subsidy thing, where it's like, clearly people wanted this to happen.
Except this is the problem with this moment in American life.
None of this shit stops until people stop it. And so it's gonna just get worse and worse and worse, and we're gonna see more videos and people getting the shit kicked out of them and get pulled out of their cars and get shot in the face, and eventually people are either going to be like, either they're gonna they're going to impeach her and they're gonna stop it, or it's gonna be every blue state, and by the way, this is happening in non blue states too, And so
I do think, like, yes, we should be cynical about these people because they're politicians and they got us to this moment. But I do think like they are all we have between between like us being Venezuela two point zero.
We wait, I think we agree, Like I think they should go ahead with you know, motions.
I'm just saying it's just gonna get worse and worse and worse. There is no other third choice, Like Trump is not gonna be like, oh, this was bad, I'm gonna stop doing it.
Absolutely, you know, Like I said, they could be doing nothing but working on impeachment paperwork, and I'd be fine with that. The argument that you don't do it because it's not gonna succeed doesn't work for me. Here. You still do it. Sometimes you do something because it's the right thing. Even if you think the odds of emerging victorious are slim, or even if you think the odds of emerging victorious are none, it's still the right fucking
thing to do. Yeah, So you do it, and it's still getting it on the record and getting it out there that these people have to be held to account. And if something like this fails, now, all right, you know we got midterms coming up, we got twenty twenty eight coming up. There's absolutely nothing that says you can't do it again. So I'm not advocating for waiting till you have a majority or anything like that. I'm saying I'm the opposite. I'm saying, do it now. If it fails.
You know, all right, you did a dry run, and then in twenty seventeen, if you've got majorities, you do it again. You wait, twenty twenty eight, you do it again. Whatever. But the trail, like you said, this stuff is not going to stop. It's just going to get worse. And the trail of opposition has to be firmly established. You can't wait until all the stars align and all the ducks are in a row and say, okay, now we
can oppose this stuff. And look, this is where both Schumer and Jefferies drive me absolutely nuts, because you know, they never seem to understand that the moment is now. It's always we can't do that. Now. We have to talk about the economy and only the economy, as if people can't hold multiple thoughts in their head at the same time, and as if it's not important to actually do the right things sometimes, And that's where this falls for me.
Yeah, I agree. I also think that the ICE numbers are bad and they're only going to get worse. The public sentiment on ice. Nobody wants this, nobody likes it. I mean, it's only going to get worse. So I think that's also true.
I absolutely agree with that. You know, I've seen people saying, I think you were wonder to n actually that abolish ice is going to be the moderate position for me.
I would never have said that in my life. By the way, fancy white person like abolish ice, I'd be like that, you know, I'd go on television and say things like, you can't have politicians who say abolish ice. Now, I don't want to vote for a politician who says who doesn't say abolish ice, like this mom was murdered because she was blocking traffic, right, Okay, if we're just going to murder random people because they're making you mad, like, that's not how any of this is supposed work. No.
First of all, welcome to the dark side, Molly. Are we glad to have you? But you know, beyond abolish ice being the moderate position, abolish ice has to be the first step. Like, that's not the end all be all. You don't just abolish ice and then say all right, you know, then make the Las Vegas blackjack dealer handwave thing. It's going to have to go for than a polis is all. I'm saying. There's going to have to be
ramifications for the Christy Knows, the Vinos, the people like that. Actually, why do you get the.
People who get fifty thousand dollars in a cave a bag? Tom Holman?
I can not imagine who you're talking about.
Tom Holman on the weekend Sunday shows. I want to talk about this. I know it's not breaking news, but so Kristin Walker is like, you got fifty thousand dollars in a cave a bag? And he's like, I mean, it was just a beautiful moment of like a man trying to say he didn't get fifty thousand dollars in a cave bag. My question is, Tom Holman, what kind of taxes did you pay? Did you pay those as income taxes? Was that? Did you pay it as a
capital gains? I mean, did you not pay taxes on the fifty thousand dollars you got in a caba bag.
I mean, is that gambling wings Maybe.
Right exactly, I don't know. It must be, it must be.
Or you have to It's like like when Oprah gives you a car, you have to pay the you have to pay the taxes, right, Yeah, yeah, I guess you had a.
Kaba bag filled with fifty thousand dollars and you get a kava bag.
Go on, yes, no, I can say, I guess. I guess you have to admit that you got a bag filled to fifty k before you can pay taxes on it.
So, by the way, my favorite part of that story is they weren't even investigating him. I know they were investigating someone else, and you just wandered in and was like, oh, I'll take that fifty thousand dollars in a cava bag.
Yeah. Truly we are.
We are being run by.
The dumbest, most corrupt Yeah. True or false? Like the stupidity is saving us a little bit.
True. I think a lot of them are stupid. I think there are some who aren't stupid. I don't think Stephen Miller is stupid. No, I think he's evil, right. I don't think he's stupid. Christy Noam, I think is pretty stupid. Tom Holman doesn't seem like the brightest.
Bulb, but I think it's worth Like, for example, let's talk about Donald Trump being in Michigan. He was in Detroit to talk about the economy and how he is growing the manufacturing despite the fact that manufacturing has actually lost jobs because these tariffs, which we're supposed to incentivize manufacturing on shore have basically just put it, have been like a big rock on our economy, right, because people
don't know what to do. Nobody trusts Trump, they don't know if he's going to change his mind, so they're just not manufacturing, and so people are losing manufacturing jobs. So he goes to Detroit to tour to tout how he's going to make America great again. And he sees one of the workers at the plant who says, why do you protect pedophiles? And he, in his infinite class and grace, the always statesman, Donald Trump gives the guy the finger discuss.
Yeah, well, look, I mean there's a couple of different ways of looking at this. One is you know, I mean Trump, I don't know that he ever had it, but he lost it a while ago. I mean he yeah, clearly, he very clearly lost it. You know, there are various things that happened to the human brain as one ages, and you know sometimes when those things happened, some of the inhibitions go away with the brain functions and.
Core frontal lobe. It's really it's not doing what it's supposed to be doing. For Donald Trump, he's days.
But also this is the kind of thing where and again I don't give him enough credit to think that he did this on purpose. You know, it gave the dude the finger. But these are the kinds of things that I think MAGA believes a larger percentage of voters are into. Like they they think half the because we hear this all the time. Well you if you attack Donald Trump, you're atacking half the country. For no, you're not. It's not even close to half the country.
Yeah, but it's probably like thirty percent of the country.
Yeah, I'd say a solid a solid third. But the point is, like they in their heads think a majority of Americans are going to see the President of the United States flipping off an automotive worker and think, right on, you really told that I don't know woke, you know whatever, woe the woke automotive plant guy, and what Look, I don't know a thing about this guy. Maybe he is woke,
but there's very good chance he's not woke. He just doesn't like the idea that Donald Trump is not releasing the Epstein files.
M that's right.
But they think, because they spend most of their day on Twitter, and they they believe that a majority of the country, that that's what the majority of the country is going to think. And I think we're seeing this a lot. And we're seeing this with what's happening on, you know, and more importantly with ice in Minnesota, where they're putting out videos that they think are going to
show this dude in a good light. And people are looking at this video and unless you are fully cooked and you're in you know, maga world, you know, you're one of that thirty percent of America maybe even smaller, you are not looking at that video and saying to yourself, you know, oh yeah, you're looking at the video going wait, you think this makes him look good?
Yeah?
And I think there's a lot of that going on now. And that's why you always hear you know, Trump loves to talk about the polls that he somehow thinks he's doing well in when he's really not, because my guess is they don't show him the actual polls, and they
probably tell him he's doing really well. They have sort of adopted this mindset that, you know, yeah, we're gonna get yelled at by the woke, you know, media and liberal tears and all that and you know you mad bruh and all that stuff, and they think the majority of the country agrees with them, and they are dead wrong on that. And I'm not excusing the people that voted for Trump who now are are coming to grips
with what they did. But in a sense, this is what they voted for, because they should have known that this is what they voted for. But in a sense, this is not what they voted for, because somehow they didn't realize this is what they were voting for. And they don't want to see this. They don't want to see a white woman, not to put too fine a point on it, get shot in the face right by some dude in you know, wearing camo. That's not what they want.
Yeah, I think about this video that was on Twitter today that Laura Loomer did of Thomas Massey. And there's a guy following Thomas Massey and he's like, Thomas Massey, why don't you just become a Democrat now? And Thomas Massey is like, because I voted Republicans ninety one percent of the time, but the nine percent I don't vote with them. It's because they're protecting pedophiles or launching foreign wars. And they put that up to show you'd gotten lumored.
And it's like, you have to be in such a brain fog to think that that makes a person look bad, and you have to be like so sort of down the partisan rabbit hole as opposed to like seeing things for what they are, and you really do see it's just such a they're so they're so removed from the kind of it's like, you know, you do actually need to have people who tell you the truth. I mean, it's like, I mean, it really reminds me of the
Bill Ackman problem. Right, if nobody ever tells you the truth, you really believe that everything you think is brilliant.
A one hundred percent absolutely, and it's you know, it's the Bill Ackman problem. It's been the Elon Musk problem for a very long time. Unfortunately, people like that have made it our problem. We all know what Fox News, my former employee, has done to people in this country. It's just a given. But we say sometimes forget that while the Fox News viewership is high for a cable news network, it is a minuscule percentage of citizens in this country. So Laura Ingram and people like that can
go on there and say whatever they want. And yes, the true believers, you know, the people who never change the channel from Fox News or you know, and the people who spend all day on Twitter yelling slurs at people of color and creating you know, child porn with croc. Sure, they're going to stay with you. You know, you were you were, you were the anti war president. Now you're talking about annexing.
Greenland with Grainland.
Yeah, but they'll sell that, and because they know their viewership are part of that percentage that will go along with that. It's just again that that ain't fifty percent of the country. It's not even close. And I'm not trying to paint America as like you know, I don't think fifty percent of the country agrees with me. I would never say that you know, one hundred percent of the country should agree with me. That would be that would be a that would be a true great society, Molly.
But it's just not going to happen. But if you walk around thinking that, Oh, look, the people on Twitter are agreeing with me, the Fox News hosts are agreeing with me, the Fox News viewers are agreeing with me. I've got the country behind me. Oh buddy, you are so wrong about that.
Andy leave Molly John fast we come back?
Will I come back?
Yeah?
That is That is a good question, I suppose in a philosophical sense, if you want to get I don't know, like ontological about it. There's a chance that I will come back. But I'll have to look into the pistemology and uh, I'll let you know how things shake out.
Excellent. Rom Manuel is the former mayor of Chicago and chief of staff to President Ron.
Welcome, Rom, Thank you.
You went to Mississippi. Did a town hall talk about Mississippi? Because this is really interesting what they're doing.
All right, Well, I'll.
Try to control my enthusiasm. I mean, you don't know this, but prior to public service, I actually studied to be a early childhood educator, early childhood psychologists. My dad was a pediatrician. It was an interest in mind following all the way through. When it was mayor, I created full day kindergarten in Chicago, which it did not have for every child, and full day pre k which it never
had for every four year old in the city. So it's a very big interest of mine, and we ended up being the number one public school system according to Sean Reardon at Stanford University. So there's this analysis starting about a little shy of two decades ago. They call it in Mississippi the Mississippi Marathon, not the Miracle, but they went from forty ninth to ninth kind of pretty simple, hard to do, but simple. They re oriented reading around
phonics science and reading science. They gave teachers a whole new program and training, They didn't hire coaches for both the principal and all the teachers. They gave additional kind of guaranteed time, a minimum of an hour and fifteen
minutes on reading. And then they gave the kids not only support, but if they were starting to look like they were falling behind, an investment in a tutor, etc. And then a consequence, which is if you don't past third grader, and you're not going to fourth grade, so
there's a real kind of accountability. All said, they moved dramatically, and I wanted to and since education is in my view, it is unacceptable to have fifty percent of your kids at reading level at grade level and fifty percent it's like competing for the future with one hand type behind your back. And what Mississippi showed, given their demographics is don't throw your towel in a razor white flag on every child. That's just not true secondary but important. A
lot of debates about this, I've been reading about them. Louisiana, Alabama, and Tennessee go to rep an, Indian River County in Florida go to replicate, and all see the same kind of I wouldn't say hockey stick, but improvement when the rest of the country is dropping right, And so I wanted to see it firsthand, because you know, one, education
is core to what I'm interested in. If you go through history of the United States, whether it starts after the Civil War, beginning of the twentieth century, after World War Two, or the Apollo Project, those are the great periods of economic growth in America. They're all underpinned by one thing. Lang Grand College is universal high school education, GI Bill, and the investment in science and technology i e.
The Powow Project, all of them underpinned by education. And I think we're in a great competition with China and we can't afford to have fifty percent of our kids failing and reading a math. Just can't. And if it's going to be a commitment of public school, you got to improve it. And it's going to be core to my view about making sure the American dream is attainable to more Americans, not fewer Americans. So I wanted to see firsthand, not just read about them. That's why I
went down there. And there's probably a secondary political benefit and just being blunt a lot of Democrats, I've went, oh, show up where we don't go. And then they're saying it from a high rise in Manhattan in their little lemon pants holding their yetty cup and never show up, not to take shots at Manhattan. But I don't talk about it. I want to go. I went to a water valley held at town Hall, a town of thirty four hundred and in the county. Donald Trump won by twenty
one percent. A little more progressive than the rest of the county. But there's thirty four hundred people, about one hundred and eighty, one hundred and sixty showed up and they have the sheriff out there to control traffic. They never had that. And anybody can come to the microphone ask about people, ask about vocational it. They ask about early childhood education. They asked about homeless kids. You know what they didn't ask Nobody asked about a bathroom access,
a locker room access. They ask about what matters to their kids. And it would be high time that the rest of us listen to that.
So that's a mouthful.
So what's the goal here, Well, let me I got it more goal. It's a broad question, but.
Let me back up. I obviously started national politics working for ben Governor Bill Clinton running for president. When I started Bill Clinton, governor Governor Winter, Mississippi, Governor Riley of South Carolina, Governor Hunt in North Carolina, Governors Belle Miller of Georgia, and Governor Childs. We're all in the forefront of answering the challenge of the report A Nation at Risk.
Every one of these governors were in the forefront, and I worked with President Clinton on public school choice teachers of excellent. I worked for President Obama as the chief staff implementing a race to the top. You're a very smart person. Name me the five top governors in education reform and what they've done. Okay, that's an answer. Number two.
You know more about the president's position on windmills than you do his position on how to reverse reading score drops across the mass scores we've abandoned.
He has no position on that.
Okay, But but you know what, fifty governors control ninety percent of all public school financing, and we have become complacent with failure. Now I'm at a point in my life I'm not going to do that, and if you don't like it, I'm not your guy. But I believe fundamentally, not only in public schools. I feel fundamentally in turning this country around, and it's going to start in the classrooms.
That's why I also took on big technology first person in public life to say every child sixteen or younger should be banned from getting social media apps. Algorithms are raising our kids rather than adults, and we've left them as vulnerable to big tech as we did to big tobacco at one point. So that's my core. And if I decide to make another leap into elective office, I want people to know where I stand. I'm at a point in my life. I'm not going to tell you
what you want to hear. I'm going to tell you what I think you need to hear. And so that's the drive. But can I find this remarkable? We don't. We have a thirty year low in reading of mass scores, no nobody else and nobody an emergency meeting of governors. Put aside your partisanship, put aside your differences on immigration. We're going to have a meeting. We're gonna lay out of a plan. Here's how we're going to do it. Our
answer vouchers close the Department of Education. Both parties are guilty of abandoning our children to the mercy of the future.
I don't disagree with anything you're saying, but I just don't understand. Like I certainly know that literacy in this country is appalling. I know that the way we teach, not teaching reading through phonics is a real problem. I've certainly seen a lot of good stuff happen in different ways with public schools, and charter schools, and there certainly are many solutions that are not being implemented. And for me, as an urban, white, Acal and Jewish person, this is
a platform I could get behind. But I want to understand what the endgame here is. Like I mean, I feel like I would, you know, write a check to your foundation, but I don't understand.
Actually, right, yeah, So let me say you and I.
Know we live in the real world and the people who run for president, I assume that's what you're.
Here's my view, which is I am going to tell you what I'm interested in and what I'm gonna focus on. Right, I have nothing against other canks want to talk about how they're going to resist Donald Trump. I'm gonna talk about how I'm gonna fight for kids. And you can make a value judgment and a political judgment which you find more important, and they're both equal. They're both valuable, right, But I think you know, long term, you tell me how you get from here to there as a country.
When third graders can't read at third grade level in China, they're going six days a week, right, So let me let me just finish one point. This has been a through line in my life, public life, starting from early childhood. Interested in being an early childhood ye to walk walking into the worst public school system in America according to William Bennett, and walking out with the best public school system of the top one hundred and I took up and it wasn't a linear line, but we took graduation
rates from fifty six to eighty three. First city in America to say, if you get a be average in our high schools, community college is free. First city in America set a goal fifty percent of our kids graduating with college credit in high school. And then first city in America to say, you're not getting a diploma in high school until you show us a letter of acceptance from college, community college, or branch of the Armed forces
or vocational ed ins set a requirement. Okay, Now, that to me is the most important thing, or one of the most important things we have to do as a country. And it's core to what I'm going to focus on now. If you decide, if I decide to run, I'm not a person of either weak, woke or gray. I come in, as I like to say, in twenty twenty four, you didn't have a choice. Right today, twenty twenty eight. You're gonna have thirty one flavors and I'm gonna be rocky
and I'm gonna be Rocky road. That's my flavor. You might and you might as well know it.
Yeah, listen, I'm man. I love the education stuff I come from. You know, I'm married to an ed tech me. See, so I spent a want.
Can I have one other comment that I apologize for interrupting, and this is miss it. There's nothing wrong or nothing challenging America that can't be cured by what's working in America. Mississippi has this model and a couple in about a month from now, I'm heading off to Michigan because they've done excellent things and vocational at the answers to our problem are happening at the local level. And as a former mayor, you want to take these local models and
scale them. So basically, it's not dependent on kind of a head of miss approach. And yeah, I just don't think we have a child to waste or a community overlook in making making sure everybody's ready for the twenty first century.
No, I think that's right. So, but I want you to talk about, like you know, how things are supposed to work, and I want you to talk about what's happening. It's a DNC right now, because I want you know a lot of stuff. I would.
It's a big, a big elage from Mississippi doc to the DNC.
And I mean down but you're right exactly, But you know, but you, I mean one of the things that I appreciate but appreciate about you is you don't mince words. So the DNC is having a terrible time raising money. We have congressional candidates raising gobs of money, we have packs raising money, we have I me and I was talking to a congressional candidate today who raised two million dollars. You know whatever, So you know how to run staff. That's one of your many charms. So explain to us
what the fuck is happening? Why is why is the party apparatus not doing well?
Come on, let me Uh one is the people on the other end. You would never usually describe what I do as charm or charming, but I appreciate that. I appreciate the flat I appreciate the flattery. It's a first for me. So look, money is usually a barometer of a vote of confidence or not. And I think you can conclude if they're having the DNC is having problems, it's because they don't think the money was well spent. In twenty twenty four we had we had three billion
dollars spent. We have not allowed to show for two is you're going to make a break from the past. You got to offer a roadmap. Here's what I would say. I'm not the DNC chair, don't want it.
No, I know you don't want it.
Here, but it's not open. Ken Martin's there.
But here's what I would do.
You got to give people a sense of confidence not only the money is going to be well spent, but here's the blueprint and what I would say. Two points that I think are important when one party controls both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue nineteen ninety four, two thousand and six, twenty ten, twenty eighteen, there's a law of physics aid kick in party out of power, massive turnout. That's exactly
what we've been seeing since a year ago. A little over fourteen months ago, Independence break two to one for the party out of power. We've seen that all over the place. Number three, the party in power, turnout depresses from the time before seeing that. So the law of physics is happening for twenty twenty six. What you want to do in certain places, as the party chair, is prepare for twenty twenty eight. So take your seven key states, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia,
North Carolina, and the blue Wall. I would make sure that from the school board to the governor's office, every line is filled because if there's a wave, you've got to have ten thousand surfboards out there, and that wave is going to take people into shore, and that begins your farm team, that begins you're organizing, That begins your contact you have field operations, you know how to drill
down because that is those seven states. Remember we've now had let's just go back to twenty twenty six, roughly four hundred and fifty thousand and seven hundred thousand Americans decide the presidency in seven states, So basically it's down to two percent in each stick.
You should be using.
A wave to prepare for what will be a nip and tuck election. That plan should be presented and people will invest in a blueprint and it's incumbent upon their meeting as you and I talking. That is the DNCI. They're talking about the schedule of what states go first. Fair discussion. But to me, as somebody who kind of set out a blueprint in two thousand and six that
nobody you know, that was novel at the time. We're going to now, we're going to cruit people out of the national security pool, not just state centators, not just state reps. Aim like Mikey Cheryl, Mikey Cheryl and Abigail. That was twenty eighteen. But it was the same blueprint you look at today. I mean, this was not that blueprint. But Chris Murphy, Senator for came out of the two
thousand and six class. So did Chuck Schumer's colleague, Christin Gilaret came out of the two thousand and sixth class. Tim Walls came out of the two thousand and sixth class. Okay, so what you want to do take your seven states, and I'm saying, drill all the way down and maybe even below school board and every line. I don't care about that precinct, I don't care about that district has a D next to it. Somebody is filling that slot. And you're gonna build a farm team and then run
a field operation in those seven states. This election doesn't take away from what you can do in Ohio. US Senate doesn't take away from it. So I don't want to get everybody's room. You didn't mention my state. I don't, you know? Yeah, we You know, governing is to choose. And I used to say this. I used to say this to President Obama. I said it when I was mayor. What ends up in the oval office, what ends up on the fifth floor, and mayor is choices between bad
and worse. Yeah, you've got to have the judgment and the character and know what the difference is. Yeah, And so I would say, yes, we're going to invest in these other states, We're going to do and perform, but these ones, these seven are first among all fifty. And that's what I would approach us as because you're creating a farm team for twenty twenty eight. You're creating a farm team for Congress one day. You're creating a farm team for mayor one day. And that's how you build
a party. You don't show up four weeks before the election.
Yeah, no, are you av me?
That's what I would do.
Do you think not releasing an autopsy was a mistake.
I slightly have a yeah, maybe this is the middle child a slightly nuanced physician, which is the report comes is wrapped up bound right when you have Republicans on the run on healthcare. I would not have switched the conversation. And media in Washington can't handle two conversations at once. Keep your focus on the Republicans, get them hard on healthcare, make sure when they're going go on home they're getting slapped around by their constituents. You now have ACA enrollments.
Over one point four million families lost health care in America because of the Republicans. I want to drive that all the way to the end zone. Now. When it first came, this is like three weeks before, two weeks before New Year's I had have released it December thirty first, and all us wackos who really care about it, we know what happened, but we would read it, etc. But I wouldn't change the story from chasing the Republicans out
of town and having failed America on healthcare. So that's so timing when you released I would not sit here and spend money on a report and leave it for the archives. Now I don't have high hopes that it's going to change behavioral patterns. I would release it, but I would not let it confuse distract us from driving a health care and affordability.
Message for my own aedification.
And also I would say distract the media who are proven to be well they're one ball there, that we're all on ball jugglers at one level.
Yeah, okay, so but for my own edification, because that's all I really care about.
What very interesting marketing model.
Oh it's great, people love it, But what like Biden World, I have a whole theory of what went wrong, which was they spent two years not letting their guy anywhere near anyone, and then two years furious that everyone was so mad at them and thought there was something wrong with him. Is that right? I mean, what do you think went wrong? Because something was really wrong by the time he was up for reelection and you could see it everywhere.
Yeah, the Oval office is incredibly seductive. You don't spend forty years of your life like Joe Bien. You get there and all of a sudden you're going to say, like, well this is like hot, hot, hot, and I'm going to walk away from it. Have you ever seen anybody
walk away from something seductive. Okay, well, and then two, having been both President Clinton senior advisor and President Obama chief staff, you have to fight against being in and that became an insular White House in space, and the Oval Office to him and his family was incredibly seductive. And this pledge that was made, it was implicit, but everybody interpreted, and he let the interpretation ride. In twenty twenty was this was going to be a reset after
four years of Donald Trump. And then I know stage left, and he broke that. That's one.
Two.
This is an observation. I think it gets less attention, but it's mine. He runs in twenty twenty, I'm bringing the country together post Donald Trump, and a correct message to answer what country everybody felt was wrong in our Trump politics, and the White House walks away from bringing the country together, profining unity and ends up trying to unify the Democratic Party rather than try to unify the country.
And so again a second bait in twitch third is he argues with the American people somewhat where Donald Trump's replicating it today, that what you're seeing in front of your eyes at the grocery store, at your home, etc. Is not true, which is and look, this is a thirty year project. What I'm about to say phenomenon. Rather, the American dream has become unaffordable and inaccessible, and that
is unacceptable to us. And Joe Piden Scratt and Joe was the byproduct of an era in an American dream that a dos an hard scrabble family down on their luck and yet their son still goes to school and then goes to the highest office. That is true. But today we have Lion's Sheriff kids whose parents worked hard, played by the rules, safe for their kids' education. Their kids go to college, educating me three to four times what they made when they came out of school, and
they're living in the basement. They can't afford an apartment, let alone get to a house. That contract has busted.
The average age of first time home ownership is now forty a decade ago, it was twenty seven, and then so so and not feeling that, which is weird for a guy who's the product of that, right, not feeling that, not theoretically with a policy paper from your National Economic Console, in his is, we would say, in his tishka, not in his bones, and not empathize and you can say whatevery sday you want to say about President Clinton, but
empathizing with that angst, that anguish. And I do think from all my travels around America, you have this big angst, this anguish that we're not taking care of our business. We know that the world is off its axis. We want Washington, which is Disneyland on the Potomac, to get right with America. And President Biden, who is a friend, should have both seen that. And I'm given also the prior to examples that made been faithful to that, and
he broke that faith. And it's unfortunate because had he done what he said he was going to do, he had gotten America. You got without going through all the commonness back A lot of stuff done, not all of it. You just don't. You run your race, your hand and got the baton. You hopefully leave the race better improved than the one when you picked up the baton. And he could have claimed that in many ways.
But you have to think when you think about that angs, you must think about people like Elon Moss, who makes so much money. I mean, we have I come from, you know, a lot of privilege, but I never there were never people.
Trillion dollar pay packages, right, because this gets to my and I don't mean to cut off, but so go ahead and finish. But I really want to say something about this. In this whole affordability argument, home ownership, groceries, health care costs. You know what, the American people need a race. You got a guy get a trillion dollar pay package and just take last yesterday's in economic remon
incomes are stagnant in America. Let alone that you've had a year a decline and manufacturing jobs and other things. Incomes are stagnant, and you have people with pay packages that never are.
But isn't this a failure to regulate? I mean, if you have the very very rich making more and more and more and you don't have a minimum wage that people catch up, I mean a failure.
Just one thing, changing the tax look our tax code. I'll just do you say regulation. I'm not against reforming and making changes, but you're not going to deal with income inequality, stagnant wages on regulation. If you think you're just going to press this and you're wrong, that's not how the economics, right.
So let me just but I just want to I just I'm going to add one thing with you question here, because the core is gause. We're interrupters here.
I want We're at a Jewish dinner table.
We're both interrupters here. So I just want to add one thing here, which is we are a country that regularly, you know that we give tax credits to big tech companies and not to newspapers. So now newspapers have died and Elon Musk has billions of dollars.
Go okay. I think the way to look at it if you look at our history and also look at economics. One, when the economics gets off kilter and way too tilted towards the few and the benefit and the wealthy, the government historically from Teddy Roseve and Franklin Rosnet has tilted the scales to level it out because a free market on its own spins out of control. We've seen it in the financial crisis, We've seen it in I mean, I don't want to go through all the history.
Yeah.
Second, as an example, in the both the Supreme Court and this administration has tilted the scales way too much towards the well off and the wealthy. The second piece is our tax code is about preserving wealth. Not about creating wealth and most exemplified, but what the President and the Republicans did. Look, I'm a product of My dad came here without a bucket to spit in a window, to throw it out of pediatric practice, built it up,
his kids do well, et cetera. I have a tax code that allows me to do stuff for my children. As now that's not going to happen. You know, you beget a schmuk the The tax code is written to incentivize a generation of transferring wealth rather than kids going out and creating wealth. This is insane, and we are protecting the comfortable and inflicting pain on the uncomfortable. And from the tax code to your country's investments, we're in
a technological scientific cold war with China. Quantum AI, life sciences, fusion, just go down the list. We should be investing in competing and winning in that area, investing in Americans education capacity, investing in our energy potential, not just putting our thumb on Venezuela as oil. But we have a couple of technologies geo thermal battery storage, et cetera. Then America can leap frog China. But we're not investing in America. We're
investing a few Americans and that's the problem. We've left the rest of America and the American people out of this competition.
Yeah.
So I don't mean to be critical, but my one observations, I'm not against the regulation, depending how you do it, but if you leave the tax code in place, the regulation a't gonna solve for fifty kids percent of your kids not reading at grade level. Not going to solve it if you leave. The fact is that we have a graduate dropout rate that is unacceptable in a modern economy. You, in fact, declare war on your greatest universities and research
centers that the world around envies. You're not going to get out of here. So it's not going to be regulation. It's a tool in the toolbox, I think the toolbox, right.
Thank you for joining us.
Oh yeah, sure, thanks thanks for having me.
No moment perfectly.
Jesse Cannon my junk fast.
So this is one of the more chilling moments of the Trump administration and its aggressions towards journalists. We see a Washington Post reporter having their devices rated.
Yeah, I know you're going to be very surprised to hear this, but the Trump administration. They are not free speech absolutests, despite the fact that we were promised that the Trump administration was filled with people like free speech lover Barry Wise. No, they do not love free speech. Here's what's happening. The FBI raided a home of Washington Post reporter. They did it because she had written something about government contractors quitting the Trump administration. They did it
because they wanted her sources. They wanted the information illegally linked from a Pentagon contractor, so they raided the Virginia home of Hannah and Nattinson. Part of it is that they want to intimidate journalists. They want people to be scared. That's part of this. Part of this is also just that you know, they don't really care about your civil liberties. They don't really care about due process. They don't really give a fuck about like the rule of law. So
they have no problem just going into somebody's house. Like even the fact that like nobody would tell you that was okay, right because it's not how many it's supposed to work. But it doesn't matter. And that's where we are right now, is that the Trump administration, Josh doesn't give a fuck they will raid journalists' houses, they will let ice kill people. There is no due process. And by the way, until Republicans and when you listen to
this and you go, well, republicans are never stand up. Yeah, that's probably right. But until Republicans do something, until they stand up to this, I don't see a world in which anything good happens here. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.