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 federal judge has ruled Tennessee's drag ban as unconstitutional. We have such a fabulous show for you today. Former Republican Congresswoman Barbara Comstock talks to us about the GOP field and the differences she sees in the candidates. Then we'll talk to Evil Geniuses author Kurt Anderson about the GOP's departure from reality. But first
we have the Lincoln Projects read Galen. Welcome to Fast Politics. Read Galen, Thanks for having me today. We must congratulate ourselves for avoiding financial catastrophe.
Yeah, I mean, look, it's no small thing, right. We do this every well, I should say this, Republicans in Congress do this every ten years or so, just to remind us how insane they were.
Right. It was just it's only happened once before. I mean, though it seems likely it will happen again.
Right, Yeah, I mean I think that in you know, the good news is is that the deal that President Biden cutt buys us another two years.
And well, that seems like a long time. It's not.
But I will say this is that if we do what we need to do November of twenty four, you know, maybe it's a narrow, narrow house, narrow Senate, we could probably do some work. Look, Molly, there is work that needs to be done, right, I think we should note that. But it's not going to be done, you know, with a gun to the head or the sort of damicles hanging over you.
Right. No, I mean, I think one of the comments that I heard a lot writing about this and talking to people was that this ended up being a normal budget negotiation, but done in a completely insane way.
Yeah, exactly. I mean the idea, well, remember that we haven't had quote unquote regular order in Congress in years, right, maybe couple of decades at this point, and so now this is how things get done in the context of yeah,
a budget, a debt ceiling, you know, whatever else. And let's be clear, there's a very good chance that nothing else of real note comes out of this Congress before the next election, right right right, the Republican House, they passed a whole bunch of bs stuff that is obviously going to die on the vine. But they're all performative anyway, you could make an argument that there's really not going to be anything else that comes up between you know, now, in the next eighteen months.
Yeah, true, But also like why the fuck are we paying them? Then? Well, I mean no, I mean I think that's right, and that's what most people are saying. But it is just still an incredible fact, right, Like imagine that you said, now we're done till twenty four.
Yeah, I mean I think that it's really in the context of where we are nowadays, which is, you know, if these are the idiots in charge, you know, I'm sort of happy to have them do nothing for eighteen months. That is a good point, But your broader point is right, which is there are things that you know, we need to do, whether or not it's on social media, AI, the environment, Like, there are things that need to happen in this country from a broad based policy perspective, on
behalf of individual Americans. Republicans, especially the one you know, the MAGA, the Taliban twenty the Magas, aren't you know, they don't care about any of that stuff. I would also say that in the context of what is already an election year, right, because look, we're already we have a Republican primary. If whether or not it means anything
remains to be seen. But the truth is we're already back into another election cycle, and you know Trump will put enormous pressure on McCarthy and the rest of those people to make sure that they don't get anything done that he doesn't like. And you know the President will do what he can to look normal, which compared to them won't be hard, right.
And that's what I want to get back to this Taliban twenty because this is a new phrase I've heard. I always cringe at the idea of comparing the American extism to extremism in Islam, because we are a country that has had a lot of dysfunction that it doesn't need. We don't need to bring other countries into it. But I'm curious to know who are these twenty.
Well it look, I mean, it's you know, the top of the list is Marjorie Taylor Green right from Georgia, Matt Gates from Florida, Paul Gosar from Arizona. Even well, I would say normally Thomas Massey from Kentucky's on the list, but he actually voted for the debt ceiling bill.
So Massi's on the rules committee. He is really I want to say he's a libertarian, but I don't know what's more libertarian than a libertarians. He really hates the government, right, he hates the federal government and wants to destroy it.
He's like a Spanish anarchist circa like nineteen thirty seven.
He is committed to that, but somehow McCarthy brings him into the inner circle, just like with Jim Jordan, just like with Marjorie Taylor Green, who says the bill is a shuld sandwich and the votes for an anyway. And these guys just show like they actually don't really believe in anything. They just want people to be nice to them.
I mean, somebody made a deal with Massey somewhere right, will likely never hear about it. That's what he needed to do. But your larger point is right, they're all transactional. They're all transactional. I mean McCarthy is the most transactional of the bunch. I mean, remember that the only constituency he has are the uber wealthy in corporate America. Right. The people of Bakersfield don't think much about him and his own conference, whether or not it is these super
magas or the run of the mills. You know, members of Congress they don't really like. And remember that McCarthy only ever rose into leadership because of his ability to raise money, right, you know he was when he was the whip, he was a terrible whip. He couldn't count votes, nor did I think he even really wanted to. When he was a majority leader, he could barely keep his own conference in line. And now he's gotten one thing done and you know, Molly, at.
Least a fifty to fifty chance it's going to cost him his job.
Yeah, I mean, he definitely is not good at counting the votes. Like said, we've seen this again and again. And you know, he was described by the New York Times is a golden retriever of a man. So you know, he is what he appears. But I'm just curious if we, you know, play the tape forward. What we saw here, right, was that you know, there was a debt debate about what the Republican Party believes. Right really here they are
wanting to shrink the bloated spending. And then but on this list of things they believe is they want to make the Trump tax cuts permanent.
Well yeah, because again that goes back to the idea of I mean, if you think back to what Trump accomplished, and I'm going to use that word relatively right for his plutocratic backers. He got massive tax cuts for corporate America, he got massive tax cuts for the evangelical community, he got all sorts of judges, including a six ' to
three Supreme Court. And for the white Christian nationalist crowd, he brought them all the anger, poison, and ugliness he could find, so you could make an argument that he did for his people what he promised he would do. Now, Republicans have to continue this tax cut mania because it's really the only thing they have. It's always sounds good on paper, but the truth is, you know, it doesn't pencil out. You know, they want to make these things permanent.
But that goes to this, you know, you called it libertarianism. I mean, we're really like in State inn rand Land, which is like, if I've got mine, good for me, and if you haven't got yours, too bad for you.
You know, the only idea they have that's popular is cutting taxes. And so if all you have is a hammer, everything looks.
Like now, well, yeah, does anyone on April fifteenth say, you know what, I feel so good about writing this check to the Treasury Department? Right, nobody does. You're not supposed to write. But that's part of being a democracy, which is we're all in this together. What the Republicans have done is let the wealthiest of the wealthy say, well, y'all are in this together.
We're not.
We do what we do. Good luck to the rest of you. And again, yet is it broadly popular. Yeah, because again it sort of scratches that itch. But to me, you know, the wealthy warning text cuts, I think is really just a is a smoke screen for I don't want anybody to ever tell me what to do with my life, my money, my business, whatever. I want to have a separate and a part thing for me and guys. Let guys, mostly guys like me and the rest of you are on your own. And if that's the way
of the world, that's too bad for you. Publicans are they're nihilists for the most part, and they're either nihilists actively or they're passively okay with the nihilism that goes on around them.
Yes, definitely interesting and not super surprising. I mean, I think of it as the burn it all down caucus, right, All they want is to burn it all down. So I want to ask you, now we go straight from the possibility of a catastrophic financial meltdown, which is now over two really good jobs numbers again the Biden economy, right. I mean, this is the thing. Even his fans are
hesitant to support him for whatever reason. People are so negative on him, and yet he continues to have the kind of luck that you know, Barack Obama would have killed for.
They are two different people in so many ways.
Right. President Obama came to the White House, Remember, with very little legislative experience, right, two years in the State Senate, two years in the US Senate, and what he could arguably be thought of as having as a mandate. Remember this is a pretty at the time, right liberal Democrat who won the state of Indiana, in the state of North Carolina, right, I mean, so he was winning in places that no one expected a Democrat to ever win. But I think there was a stylistic difference too, which
is he believed he had the mandate. He acted accordingly. But I think the thing that I'm moldy now just coming to realize was how much his election pissed off so many really very conservative white people. I mean, Mitch McConnell said it out loud, it's my job to make
him a one term president, right. So it was a combination of I think inexperience and maybe a little bit of hubris on the part of the Obama white House mixed with a very you know, ugly and now we're seeing this, right, it's supercharged sort of the white nationalist ugliness that we're now experiencing today.
But I also think Obama inherited really a lot of bad luck.
Oh yeah, I mean, he took over with the worst thing since the Great Depression.
I've been very impressed with Biden. But these jobs numbers are a certain amount of luck too, I mean, because nobody is expecting this.
Well yeah, but I mean, you know, I saw a New York Times headline that says, you know, jobs numbers outpace expectations. Again, well, how many months in a row do you have to have good jobs numbers before you say, well,
maybe maybe the economy is doing okay. Because everybody we're you know, I mean, for the last twenty plus years, Molly, we're always expecting the next catastrophe, and the last twenty years have had in a pond full of what's supposed to be white swan it's just full of black sworms. Now it's like, okay, well, when's it going to end? When's the next shoe going to drop? And so when good things happen, it's always going to be Okay, Well we got lucky again, right, we got lucky again. Now,
maybe we are. Where I live is a relatively small town, but there's not a restaurant or a store that doesn't have a help wanted sign on the window. There doesn't appear to be a shortage of work available. It seems like we're short of people to do it.
Now. That brings us to another Republican fuck up, which is their complete and utter disinterest in fixing immigration. I mean, luckily they're passing child labor laws so we can have children working. That's my own irony. But I mean, just you know, they're really I mean, you see, Sarah Sanders, they have been reworking these child labor laws, obviously in the hopes of keeping these big companies from getting in trouble. But I think it is a really salient and worrying situation here.
I think that's right.
But it goes back to the idea of if there is a reasonable and humanitarian way to solve two issues, which is, we have people that want to come here, as we always have, and we have jobs available to them.
Right.
Remember, if you are an upper middle class French person, you don't need to come to the United States if you live in Guatemala. Right, and the choices are really good. Chance that either me or a member of my family lives in abject poverty or experiences a violent death, or I can track the thousand miles north to the United States and try and make a better life, Like what
are you going to do? And so we can solve two problems, which is give people a humanitarian outlet while providing people to do the jobs that frankly, in a post industrial country, most Americans aren't.
Going to do.
But this is the point, this is the ugliness of them, which is, you know what, can't find enough people to work at the port processing plant. Tell the fourteen year old go do it. You go hack up a bunch of you know, Boston pork butts eight hours a day.
And if you lose a thumb, eh.
Too bad, right right, right? No, I mean that I think that's ultimately what we're seeing. So my question is, now, on the trail we have Trump and then we have all of the people pretending to be Trump. Why is there really no one in the never Trump lane of this GOP primary challenge.
I would say this because they're all afraid of it, most importantly, and none of them understand what it takes to beat him, which is, well, first of all, look, I've seen a bunch of stories, Molly, you know, oh well, you know, the broad the expanding primary field will make it easier for Trump to win. It could be one on one, it could be one verse ten. You know, he's going to I believe he's going to be the nominee.
You know, if so long as he's got a solid forty to forty five percent of the primary electorate, it's really darn near impossible.
To beat him. But well, let me say this.
They've made a deal with the devil doctor Faustus, made his deal with mister Mephistopheles, and this is all coming home to roost, which is they know they can't win without the Trump be primary voters. They can't win a primary. But The problem is is if they were to beat him, thirty percent of the party stays home, right, and they lose in the general, And look, maybe that's the best outcome for everybody. Trump loses goes crazy. He says it was stolen from him. You've got the RNC and the
GOP overlords such as they are in Washington. GC said, God, thank god, he's done. But you get crushed in thirty five states because every MAGA guy and gal in target states stays home, so they don't see any way to do it. The other part, too, is none of them understand that to beat him, you must be on him all day, every day. They must collectively do it. DeSantis does it. The problem is that you know he's willing to do it, but a he's no better as either a human being or a leader.
I think he's much scarier.
He is because he's been willing to do it. But he's also a terrible candidate. I mean, he is awful.
That's the best thing about him.
Yeah, I mean he is really.
I mean, just as someone who's spent more time in like Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina and Nevada, you name.
It, Like he is awful at this.
As our friend Stuart Stevens likes to say, you know, running for president is a study in humiliation. This is a guy who does not like to be humiliated. He can't even pretend like he's having a good time.
Yeah. I mean, I also think that it's a question of, like, this guy is bad. I mean, I don't understand, but I mean he is also, like I think, a really scary authoritarian. Like if you were a country that was about to slip into authoritarianism, wouldn't you want the guy who can do Trumpism without Trump? Well?
Yeah, and I think this You're making a really good point here too, which is for all of those same plutocrats I was talking about earlier, or you know what passes for conservative intelligentsia now right the National Review people is they're happy to take what Trump represents so long as they can run it through the car wash and it comes out looking like Ronda Santis. And I think that's a really important thing for us to remember, is that Ronda Santis is no better. He is worse in
some ways. You're absolutely right, But the normals, so to speak, the quote unquote normies are happy to take him because his name isn't Donald Trump?
Right?
They could theoretically take him to the country club or the yacht club or out to a fancy restaurant and he won't embarrass them. Whereas you know, as well as I do, like Trump comes rolling in like a golden steamroller, an orange pancake steamroller, and is the center of everything, and everybody's got a smile and not and go. Can
you believe he's really doing this and saying this? Whereas DeSantis might be weird, but at least you know he's got a pretty wife and a family and everything else, and you can polish him up long enough to get him through dinner without embarrassing you.
Yeah, I mean, though you can't. It turns out you can't. But yes, thank you so much. I hope you'll come back.
Great, absolutely, thanks for having me.
Barbara Comstock is a former Republican congresswoman. Welcome to Fast Politics, Barbara Comstock.
Great to be with you, Molly.
Very excited to have you as actually right now, as we go right from debt ceiling drama to GOP primary drama, you were a member of this party or maybe still are, I mean, what is your take?
It is distressing I take it individual by individual, you know, sort of. I guess I'm kind of a Liz Cheney Adam Kinsinger Republican. When you look at the presidential candidates, Asa Hutchinson is a friend, Kristin Huno is a friend. So you know, any of the Republicans polling under five percent after the presidential campaign, those those are those are my friends. Yeah, So it's it is distressing on that front.
But when you see the fireworks now going on between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, who you know, every time I see them kind of now going out each other, I am reminded of Logan Roy when he said it to his children, you aren't serious people. That can very easily be applied to Donald Trump and Ron desantists. And so I want to remain ever hopeful because I do think it's important that we have a two part of system. There might be a chance to have a Republican nominee
who might be a serious person. Right now that doesn't look too promising, but I do think with the entrance of Chris Christy, who I think, you know is I think Peggy Noonon had a good column today talking about how, you know, his main mission is going to be to stop Donald Trump, and he kind of has the book on Trump and why he's unfit and can kind of go through that and take a pretty you know, as a prosecutor, kind of go through and really take it
to him. Liz Cheney can do the same thing if she gets in, because she's got chapter and verse on the January sixth story and can be very precise on that. So if either, you know, either of them can do that then and then the indictments come that might take Trump down a notch. The fight between Trump and DeSantis will take both of them down. So then does that give an opening for a more serious person? So it
might be in flux. I'd like to be hopeful that there might be a serious person, But you know, that's I think it's important that we have a two party system, but right now it doesn't look real promising on that.
We have Desanta's running to the right of Trump, which is a very very very narrow lane.
Yes, well, Trump is just about Trump, So when you really talk ideologically, it's hard to you really can't put him in a category because he's just about himself. Like when you saw him yesterday saying woke, woke, woke, you know, nobody knows what woke is. Well, of course Trump himself was out about woke. But now that that's you know
that is, I mean, I think it's silly too. And it was funny just the other night I was at an event where a Republican, a local Republican who I do support because he's somebody here locally who doesn't talk like the silly desantisis and Donald Trump, and when he sends out a memo or a newsletter, he says, well, here's the problems going on in our communities. We've had break ins in these neighborhoods, We've had this type of crime, and here's what's going on, and here's what I'm doing
about it. And he gives you chapter and verse of what he's doing. And he doesn't talk in these silly slogans and doesn't use the word woke, and doesn't you know, he's very practical. And so I just said, you know, thank you for not talking that silly lingo all the time. So when they heard what Donald Trump said, somebody sent me this email. Oh gee, Donald Trump now agrees with Barbara. No, no, no, it's just the broken clock happened to be.
Right, I mean, like think of a Tim Scott. Tim Scott when he announced, there was a sense maybe that he would run as a sort of not Donald Trump. But as he's been in the race, and you saw so Nicky Haley too, they've I mean Nicky Haley. If you think about her before she became trumpy, you know, you would think like there's sort of more of a case for her when she runs as not trumpy. But what she and a bunch of these candidates have done is they've really just sort of become like lesser versions
of Trump. And I just think it's infected the rest of the party.
Yeah. No, and that's and that's what the big problem is. And I know recently I was talking an interview where I said, you know, if you're if you're not, if you're just going to be a cheerleader for Trump or many Trump, then don't run. Go be part of his you know, little cheerleader squad. If you're going to run, you know, you have to be your own person. You have to be out there telling your story and be a leader. How to follow and not has been the problem.
And that is why you know, I do like somebody like a sat known him since he was in Congress. He's a serious lawyer. He headed up the DA, so he has serious ideas about, you know, how do you deal with fentanyl. You know, he's been down on the border talking about the border. He hasn't just been doing the reflexive Fox News attacks on the border. You know, he has some thoughtful ideas from when he was you know, at Homeland Security about what are some things you can do.
Will Hurd, who may or may not. You know, he's been talking about maybe running for president. He had a border district so and he also supports immigration before him, so he has some serious ideas on that. So those are the type of people we need, you know, who want to be leaders, who you know, we need to run. Not people who think, well, oh the party is here, so that's what we need to do. We need to have leaders who maybe will bring the party another direction.
And if the party doesn't go there, if you can't lead people, then you're not going to win anyway. Because I don't see Trump winning. I mean when you look at the swing states, so I mean if he gets the nomination, we just lose again. I mean only will be close. I know Democrats worry, but I think When you look at the swing states that Trump lost, they've moved more democratic direction eight Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin. You know, we all know that in you know, you have strong governors,
democratic governors in those states now. And even you know in Arizona, where people thought, oh, no, you know, Carry Lake looked you know, I mean, it's amazing when you look at last year where even Democrats were worried that Carry Lake looked strong. I mean, dog Master never looked strong, but people thought, oh, but Carrie Lake. You know, she dressed nicely, she spoke, you know, more eloquently than a Doug Mastriano. But there are Republicans like me, they're independents
who they're not going back for these authitarian people. If they dress them up nicely and they look attractive, we see through that, and I think people they're not going back there to that party. They're not going back to Trump. And you can't dress up candidates, no matter what they look like, to go back. So listen. I never was somebody who thought Biden was a good candidate all along
the way. But if it's Trump versus Biden, I think there's going to be plenty of you know, enough Republicans and certainly enough independents who are Ford were pro democracy and that's what's last year, and that's where we're at, regardless of you, because this authoritarian bent with Trump, with DeSantis, this is for the country first and foremost, but it's also destructive for Republicans. And until that gets washed out of the party, there's a lot of Republicans who aren't
going to be coming back. And it doesn't attract the independent it's either in these silly fights. I mean, you know, between DeSantis and Trump are just about who's more authoritarian. Santis the other day says, well, you know, we're sick of these people imposing their will on us. We will impose our will, sort of the libertarian bent of Republicans said, we want to be the you know, the leave us alone coalitionea of imposing our will. Is not the center
right coalition that I was ever a part of. And that a lot. And when you hear DeSantis saying that, it just is cringe. He's just such a bad candidate anyway, the things that he says, when he's saying things like, oh, Trump didn't do a good job, or Trump's just you know, performance well so much of what he's done and has ended up in court, whether it's the Disney things or acts on social media companies which I work with, you know,
tech companies and social media companies. But you know he's been suing them and he's not doing very well in court, and conservative lawyers have taken him to court because and he's not doing well. So plenty of his things have ended up in court, just like Donald Trump ended up in court. You know, his record is not so hot either. The idea that you know, in his whole attack on the federal workforce, which I live in Virginia, I represented that so it attack on the so called deep state
is just as ridiculous as Donald Trump. So both of them just are kind of you know, different versions of you stick with my succession, Logan Roy, different versions of Kendall or Roman Roy. Right, you know, there's silly people who should not be in charge of things, and both
of them have already demonstrated that in so many ways. Yeah, I think Chris Christy getting in and then I think when we get to debates also grown ups like you know, ASA being on stage, whether it's Kristan Unu or others who will hopefully be able to point it out, and I hope with Tim Scott and others who've been reluctant to take on Trump or Desantas, I well, actually, you know, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, Mike Pence, they have pointed out that the Disney thing is silly because why are Republicans
attacking businesses? Why are we attacking the free market system. If you don't like what a company's doing, you don't have to, you know, take part in their business. But we aren't the people who were attacking businesses, you know. Now those people don't want to eat at Chick fil A.
The left didn't like Chick fil A because they were right anti gay.
Yeah, I mean, it's just silly.
But here's my question about this. So Trump is actually sort of even though he's very popular in the primary field, he's quite diminished in the regular field. And we've seen this again and again. He doesn't have the same power you know, he can like it used to be when he first came on the scene. You know, if he tweeted about you. I don't know if you ever had that experience, but you know you would see death threats, you would. I mean, it was really quite scary. And
he has a base. They're crazy, but a lot of them going to jail may have heard their resolved. But I'm just curious, like, do you think some of the anxiety about criticizing Trump is sort of left over from when Trump.
Used to be this all powerful People should not be afraid of criticizing him, I mean I from I mean, I didn't support him in twenty sixteen when I was on the Bautlet.
With him, and I ended up out running him by twelve points in my district, and I did better in my district in every part of my district. I mean, when I lost in twenty eighteen, it was because people in my district didn't like Trump and they wanted Democrats to be in the majority and then they could impeach him, which supported support him in twenty twenty either, So you know, criticizing him, certainly when he was in office, it did
get you attacked, obviously, you know, Janey Adam Ginsinger. Certainly it can get you a primary. That kind of thing can happen, but it's not as bad as people. I think. Actually having Tucker Carlson off the air right happened to Fox. I think that has lessened sort of the death threat things. I mean, I worked with, you know, helping you know, the cops you know who went through the January sixth
night mire. They still do get threats when you know, like when Tucker Carlson put the January sixth stuff on air, there's two or three nights that he did it. You know, then people either show up at their house or send them messages. They'll happened then. But now that he's gone, the temperature has come down. So I think that has been a wonderful thing to have him gone. I think it also maybe taught the others a little bit of
a lesson too. And Trump, look, he attacked Kaylee mcannaney and then some of these people saying, oh, don't attack Kaylee. January six didn't do it, But attacking the poor little blonde did. What does that say about you? More than
you know? But he's still Trump still goes out and attacks the officer who shot Ashley Babbitt, who was trying, you know, to protect all of the members of risk and he's been totally exonerated, and that officer, you know, I don't know the nature of the threats that continue against him, but you know, those officers do continue to get threats, and Trump is still probably a daily threat to them, and that is horrendous and that enrages me
to this day. Those threats still are there and they still need to be called out, but hopefully they are lessoned.
People need to.
I mean, the reason I continue to speak out against him is because I think those people shouldn't have to and those of us who have a voice who can do it and should do it so that they don't have to because it's harder for them to do it. They don't.
I mean, I.
Don't have people protecting me either, but they shouldn't have to do it. They didn't sign up for this. You know, people who are in office are the ones or were in office, are the ones who signed up to do this and should be protecting people like that, not forcing them to have to be in that position. But I think you're right. I think it's lessened and I think
people he's a lesser person. And when he was indicted and had to go in, you know, and Marjorie Green tried to get people riled up, they didn't get riled up. When they went and took the documents from mar A Lago, there was less of a you know, there wasn't much going on there. And I think when he is indicted, and I do think I'll be indicted again, I don't
think you'll see that big of a response. And hopefully a lot of these Republicans will instead of being cheerleaders for him and saying, oh, poor Donald, it's unfair, they'll do what Asa Hutchison did as a former prosecutor. And I think Chris Christy will do this and say these are serious indictments. They should be respected. Now, they should go through the legal process and let the jury decide. Certainly, that's how you know, the Egene Carroll process should be respected.
I would see some of these guys say, oh, that shouldn't be respected. Why not. That's a jury that looked at the facts. Donald Trump wouldn't even go in and face a jury. Trump always does poorly when he has to go into court put his hand up and the law in truth, you know, are what he has to count on. He never does well in that situation when he can't bs and you know, count on trying to fool the people, you know. So that's when it all
comes crashing down on him. So I think, you know you're at least going to have two prosecutors on the stage against him, hopefully Asa and Chris Christy, And if Liz Cheney comes in, you're gonna have three prosecutors up there who really know how to tell the truth on him.
Do you think Liz Cheney will come in.
I'm not sure, but I'd love to see her do that. But I think she obviously is committed to you know, she put up that ad that went up in New Hampshire when he did that horrible CNN debate, I mean town Hall, and you know, she is committed to making sure he is never in office again. She will be engaged in that process, which is a good thing. And I think you know, she was willing to, you know, I mean she made a choice. Yeah, her own personal career was more important. The constitution and the role of
law was more important than living a lie. And I think that was an easy choice for her to make, and for her and for Adam, you know, were I think they were frankly surprised that it wasn't easier for others. But I think she'll continue to do that. So I think that's good for the country, and I think that's
one of the many reasons. It doesn't take that many people to do it to, you know, kind of pull down the emperor has no close And I think more and more people are seeing that, and that's why I mean, people forgot. People got very upset with that town hall. But people forgot. Donald Trump lost New Hampshire twice in the general election. Candidates all lost last year in New Hampshire.
So that audience, which was a bunch of those people who supported the losers, basically, you know, so he was sitting there in front of people who voted for losers and voted for him, so you know, yeah, okay, these are the people who cheered the losers, picked the losers, and big surprise, they're sitting there once again bopping for losers. These people don't know how to pick winners so bad.
But these are the people who may be probably even reluctantly voted for Kristinunu, who Trump would call a rhino. Yet here he is the most successful politician they have in New Hampshire. And a lot of those Trump people are like, oh yeah, well, Kristin n It's like, yeah, one of the most popular governors in the country and in New Hampshire, and the base of the party doesn't like him as much as Trump. And the reason in New Hampshire is a state that's in good shape, it is because of Christanoon.
Barbara Comstot, thank you so much for joining us. I hope he'll come back.
Oh great to be with you.
Molly.
Hi, it's Molly and I am wildly excited that for the first time, Fast Politics, the show you're listening to right now, is going to have merch for sale over at shop dot fastpoliticspod dot com. You can now buy hats, hoodies, and toe bags with our incredible designs. We've heard your cries to spread the word about our podcast and get a tow bag with my adorable Leo the Rescue Puppy on it. And now you can grab this merchandise only at shop dot fastpoliticspod dot com. Thanks for your support.
Kurt Anderson is the author of Evil Geniuses. Welcome to Fast Politics, Kurt Anderson.
I couldn't be happier to have returned.
I'm so glad you're on today, and you're such a good writer. Let's just take a minute to talk about what a good writer you are.
Why.
Thanks, I'm super per snickitty, but I want to talk to you about this idea, because you've written a lot about this idea and I feel like you were at the beginning of it and it's gotten more true. Which is this idea of a fantasy land?
Yeah, you know, it's his book. You know. I started working on it twoloy fourteen, before Donald Trump was around, really, and then it was finished. He had just as he was about to get the denomination, and it came out
just after he became president. You know, it was a strange idea at the time, because I was saying what now people say every day all over the world and all over the media about the United States and the world and trump Ism and all the rest, which is that, well, if we don't agree on facts, and we have all these alternative facts, we can't have a country where this can't go on. Well, it's remarkable that only, you know, six years ago, this was a strange idea and this
is going to be a strange little history book. But then Donald Trump came along and became its avatar and epitome and here we are, so yeah, there we are. And then yes, and I have been seeing it continue and was interested in this new way of what's real what's fictional, how do they how do they intersect and pro creator whatever they do in art and things like succession, which I think it did masterfully and beautiful.
So let's talk about that idea. It's both real and unreal and wrong that it's so real.
Yeah, I mean it obviously inspired by the Murdochs and Fox News, right, but that doesn't mean it's not a bio pick. It's not really a Romano claim trying to go by the letter of oh, this is James murch, this is Lachlin m this is Rupert Murac, right, but
there are resemblances, and that's interesting. Moreover, it's interesting as Fox News is doing what it's doing and being so central to the fuckinging of America as it has been and is, and so as the show went on and because of how the show was, Okay, it's like a season of episodes, nine or ten episodes and then a year off, and as we were dealing with Trump and the aftermath of Trump and all all that that meant, and Fox news Is involvement was it was extraordinary. Of course,
let's stipulate. I believe it was an amazingly well written and well produced show as well doing this. It wasn't just flittering back and forth with what's real and what's not.
For those of us who loved it, and I understand all the various reasons that people who didn't love it didn't love it, well there's no one to root for, or oh that's bad enough, I don't need to see versions of it on television, all those reasons, Okay, fine, whatever, But for those of us who loved it, it was, as I say in the piece, it was this uncanny valley unlike any I've ever been to of like this is very real in so many ways, and then you know that has its ups and downs, as we saw
in the show is for me, one of the at least blips in the road or the bumps in the road or something. Was their election night show a few a couple or three weeks ago. It was extraordinary, and of course because it was about people who have a Fox News channel and who make movies and television, people who are in the business of simply getting people to watch their stuff, which is all that the media and entertainment business is about, at any cost and at any price,
and damn the collateral damage. It was very complicated and I spent way too long trying to parse it out and write this piece about it.
So Fox News probably one of the elements that has led to the precariousness in which we find ourselves an American democracy.
In American democracy. And I don't want to use the word epistemology because people will even and I go, what does that mean? But like what is true and how you know something is true or real? There is no greater single entity responsible for this part of the problem, apart from just the specific freaks that it has empowered in our politics.
I don't think you're going to have a Donald Trump presidency without the existence of the Fox News could be.
When I wrote this book, Fantasy Land, Too, I went back and forth and as it came out, I thought like, Oh, did Trump cause this? No, not really, because you know, I had been writing about its imminence and kind of inevitable coming when Trump was niven around to strike the match and pour gas on the flames he did that would this had gone this way without him specifically? Probably, But it's a counterfactual. We can never test same with
Fox News. But I think you're probably right, And I think a Fox News that was a normal conservative channel in the way that MSNBC is a normal liberal channel, wouldn't have done this. I don't think, you know, there still would have been this outpouring of rabble gone wild that are the magas for lots of reasons. Yeah, I don't think it would have gone as far as dangerously
awry without maybe not without Trump too. I mean they were both kind of triggers or fuses on the pile of kindling that set it off.
I mean, we've talked about this. Last time you were on the podcast, we talked about this, and I don't think we need to like go crazy on this, but it is. You do know Trump from the years in which he wanted something from you.
I do, and actually I mean know him. I had correspondence with him. I never sat down and hung out with him. Yeah, I have a long history with him and then and most recently in the Eugene Carroll trial, I was reminded of some of the specifics of that
history because Egene's main witness, my friend's a Burnbach. You know, I'd sent her down to do when I ran New York Magazine to do a piece about Trump and mar A Lago and stuff, and that became a small but not insignificant issue in the case, and so forth and so on. So yeah, I have been following him and
his very uncertain grip on reality. And I may have mentioned this last time, but these correspondents I have with him about that piece that Lisa wrote about him and mar A Lago, which he wrote to me to complain about. And I said, but dude, it's just your words. It's just it's not there's an introduction and then it's just you talking. He said, yeah, I know, but it's still it's really unfair.
How is it unfair if he said it.
Well, because he is used to being He was certainly in nineteen ninety whatever that was six, still used to being portrayed by the press in some semi flattering way, rather than the letting his words hanging, which is what we did.
I wonder. So there was a period. I always think about this, and you tell me if you think I'm crazy. There was a period in the nineties when magazines were really, really mean to celebrities, and then there was a period in the early two thousands this sort of InStyle magazine, the bloom of these like they're not quite pr pitches, but they almost are. And do you think that that, coupled with reality television created the world of unreality in
a certain way? I mean, obviously the political elements, the kind of George Wallacy that stuff comes back to reconstruction, to the Civil War and even before that. And you know, racism has been alive in this country as long as there's been a country, and in the nineties that roared back and really did. But I'm just curious, do you think that in those twenty tens, this kind of glossy media plus reality television helped this fantasy land along?
Oh? I yes, all those things you mentioned are part of it, you know, speaking of kiddling and fuses and gas and the fire and how it was created. What I will take issue with is the media were mean to famous people. Nah. I mean I ran one that was, but by and large not so much.
Yeah.
Yes, in the nineties, certainly the in style I mean began was part of this period of like, let's just make it a big advertorial where you can buy the makeup and the underwear that these stars talk about wearing, and it'll be love letters to them and you can live in this. You can pretend you know them and then, of course, and reality TV absolutely a giant part of this. You know, what's real, what's true, what's fiction, what's scripted? We don't know, it's all a jumble. Happened of course
in the nineties and odds as well. And what else was happening right then, Well, the Internet, you know, and so suddenly you could have people, for instance, who said that vaccines cause autism, have a means to make that a big deal and spread it around and en lists believers and so on and so forth for the next you know, for the twenty five years since. So yeah, that was all part of the media soup, the poison to this media soup that led us to where we are.
So magazines basically, and I mean I say this is someone who loves magazines works for magazines. Magazines basically they're sort of a ghost of their former selves, and those ad dollars have really gone to like Instagram and tech companies largely. Do you think there's a world where these things switch back, or do you think there's a world where content is embraced by I mean, I feel like the biggest mistake any of us did was calling it content.
Well I never did call it content. I still haven't. I hated it.
I can't.
I won't say that except in scare quotes. I'll say it sometimes.
Right.
The thing about magazines and newspapers and good ones I mean is that, well, the New York Times still exists as the New York Times to kind of in a way, a more thunderingly important central extent. I mean, it was that way, and then it became less that way. But I would say in the current day it's still a
big thing. Also with magazine, right, I mean, no, magazines don't exist in a thing you buy once a week or once a month, and it has a sensibility and a curatorial thing that oh, here's the stories that these editors wanted you to read. No One, I mean very fewer and fewer people read magazines in that sense. However, the good magazines, The Atlantic, the New Yorker, many more we could name, still spend money on good journalism and publish it. Now those don't. People don't consume them in
that package anymore. They go and read this one online from Vanity Fair, and this one online from Scientific America, and this one online.
You know.
So, even though yes, the magazine era died as soon as I left it. Good journalism and long form journalism still exists, I don't know, maybe as healthily a quantity as it did, you know, twenty years ago. Even though you no longer buy magazine X, Y or Z once a month or a week to get your fill of it there in the same way that one did, the way we consume it has changed. I'm not sure that yet that kind of good long form journalism has gone
to hell. But you know, it's easy for me to say that as an old person who doesn't any longer make their living from writing or editing magazines.
But you know, I want to know what you think if there's a world in which America becomes sane again.
Oh, as Hemingway said, it's pretty to think. So No, not really. And people have asked me that, really, since you know, in all kinds of fora public and otherwise, since I published Fantasy Line almost six years ago, And I have the same answer that I had then, which is I can see it going no further. I mean, of course, and hasn't gone further in these six years in some ways, but in terms of the number of toxic nuts and freaks who don't believe in facts in
dangerous ways. We can hold the tide. We can build the dams and the dykes and the whatever and hold those horrible waters back. Or maybe you know, whatever, have the national divorce one day and they can just live in their squalid places by themselves. But I don't think it's like suddenly all the citizens have picked your place, are going to wake up and say, yeah, we were very badly mistaken about this whole thing, the of the teens and twenties, you know, I know, I just don't.
I don't think so. I think for all a variety of reasons that I wrote about in that book and have happened. Since we are what we are, I mean, we can, as I say, serve to rolling over us and destroying us completely. I hope still we can limit its, you know, hope that our institutions and norms and majorities of good saying decent Americans, which I absolutely think we have, can prevent the minority of nihilists and monsters from doing us in. But you know it's a struggle.
Yeah, it's true, Kurt Anderson. I hope you'll come back.
Always, anytime, no moment.
Jesse Cannon, Mai Jong Fest, Jack Dorsey, A man who if you read Nick Bilton's fantastic catching Twitter book, you know has had some questionable views throughout time, but he really came out of the closet with the doozy today.
Yes, Jack Dorsey has sort of almost endorsed RFK Junior. You may remember r f K Junior as the Yeah he's Connor Roy, the eldest character from Succession. You know, RFK Junior is a known anti vax or complete lunatic. The chances of him getting more than about one percent of the vote are less than zero. And for that, and for Jack Dorsey's propping him up, just as he propped up Tulca Gabber, he becomes our moment of fuck Roy.
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.