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 AOC says, everything feels increasingly like a scam. We have such a great show for you today. MSNBC contributor to Charlie Sykes takes the temperature of Trump's unitary executive theory and his aggressions towards our constitution. Then we'll talk to author Michael Wolfe about his new book All or Nothing, how Trump recaptured America. But first the news.
My I got real shocking news.
A judge's ruled that the OPM does not have any authority whatsoever to fire people from other agencies fire everyone.
Yes, yes, it's shocking to know that Elon Munk firing everyone in the federal government is illegal.
I find it even more shocking to find out that the guy who was known for the same you're fired is doing this to all these people.
So, I mean, the Office of Personnel Management does not have any authority whatsoever under any statue in the history of the universe who hire and fires employees at another agency? Wrote the judge. That sounds like a judge who does not have many questions. Does not have any authority whatsoever under any statue in the history of the universe. It's pretty definitive. A federal judge in California ruled Thursday that the Office of Personnel Management and Agency, taken over by
lieutenants of the billionaire Elon Musk, violated the law. If I had a dollar for every time it seems like Elon Musk had violated the law, I'd be as rich as he is. Ugh, it's funny, but it's also kind of sad. Look, you know, federal judges, Trump, this is what's true in one point zero. This is true in two point zero. My man, The courts continue to say
this guy, he continues to lose a court. Now, the question is in Trump what they would do, like with the Muslim ban, is they would go back and rewrite it and then be able to You know, they did in fact pass a Muslim ban. It wasn't quite as banny as the first one was, but it still was a band. So the question now is will they go back and try to sort of round the edges so that they can get away with what they want to get away with, or will they ignore the judges and
will we have a constitutional crisis? Since I don't protict the future, I don't know, but it certainly feels crisisy and constitutionally.
I feel like they're looking at constitutional crisis the way Garfield looks at was on you these days.
Ah Garfield reference. If only any of my kids listen to this podcast.
So by there's this guy Jeffrey Epstein who is on tape saying that he was Donald Trump's best friend, not that Donald Trump was his best friend, which I think is the fun. You're part of it, right, Had Trump promise to release all the documents around the Epstein files and wanh wanh wan't not so much.
Yeah, here's the deal. There are Epstein files, most of them have been released. This is I mean, the thing that's like incredible about this story is it shows that no one ever reads so exactly true.
Yeah, because this is one of my favorite subjects. So I know way too much of it.
Yeah, Like I was reading something yesterday the show that was like, not only have the list been released, somebody tried to sell the Black Book at auction last year.
It's been auction twice.
Right, I mean, there's no like, this is not some secret like, you know, it's everyone from the guy who's the head of Black Rock. I mean, it's just a lot of rich guys. Well you sort of think probably did that kind of stuff. Bill Clinton, Donald Trump.
Yeah, certain president on the flight looks yeah.
I mean, well there aren't two presidents.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Bill Glinton, Donald Trump.
Lots of it, my tea scientists.
There's literally it's like everyone who you kind of thought might be on it is on it. You know, very famous guys who have a lot of money and who were a little creepy. Here's the thing. So they got all of their people, their influencers, so their Brooklyn Dad, Defiant, a.
Guy called DC Dreno.
DC Dreno, everyone you have blocked on Twitter, got these big white binders. And the binders said Ebstein Files Phase one, and in the binders were everything that has already been published, which, by the way, I just want to pause for a minute.
As someone who deals with comms directors, they often do this like they'll be like, I'm going to give you some new information and it's like a press release filled with articles from nineteen eighty two, and you're like, but this is just stuff you can get on the internet, you know, so I do respect the hustle. You know, the White House is playing the DC Comms game the way every DC Comms person does it. Where they fled
you with bullshit that's already been reported. That said, they got very excited, all of the worst people in the world holding these white binders up in front of the White House, smiling like this is their moment. And then I guess they read it.
Yes, and they discovered that there was a nothing Burger for lunch, right.
They discovered that it contained no new information. Again, because all the information is out there, which I think is an important point, all.
The information that's not redacted, it looks like the White House was running low on black ink yesterday.
Yeah, they didn't unredact anything that hadn't been redacted. So and then it was like a question of who and Maga can blame who, right, because if there's one thing that met loves to do, it's blame each other. So and I think it was you know, remember this was meant to be the culmination of QAnon. The person who got the blame. I have a theory, and again there's no scientific evidence to back this up that the least crazy person tends to get the blame in maga world.
Hmmm.
I like this because the least crazy person is often not as excited and so they get mad at them. So Pam Bondi got all the blame, and they were very mad at her, right, they said that they were you know, they felt she had gamed them. And remember she had hyped the files, which is a good lesson to her, saying that it would shed more light on his crimes. She teased the document drump last week, saying that on her desk Wednesday evening they were pretty sick
documents which contained a lot of information. I can understand why they're a little mad at her.
At A.
Pauline A. Luna, chairman of the House Task Force on the stupid declassification of federal secrets, was among the first to cry foul. Good for her, I nor the Task Force were given reviewed the Epstein documents being released today. She wrote an x noting that in your post article because are there really any other papers besides in your post just revealed that the documents would simply be Epstein's phone book. This is not what the American people asked for. Did the American people ask for?
This if I'm the American people, Yes.
Give us the information we asked for. All caps explanation point, Lord Lumer not happy. The binders are props. All caps explanation point. You're shocked to learn that this just ended exactly how we think it will.
Yeah, And speaking of things that are ending exactly how we thought they would, it appears Elon Musk is the new House whip as well as the head of Doze and so many other jobs, because he's basically whipping votes by threatening people to unleashed super pac money against them, and AOC is crying a foul Yeah.
Yeah, he sends out a tweet and all of a sudden everyone backs off. AOC said, here's the idea. This is farmer reforms, right the House Energy Committee and want of reforms on pharmacy benefit managers. So this would be the kind of thing that Republicans supported, Democrats support it, and the bill has almost full unanimous support. And then guess who decides he does not want to lower the prices of drugs. Guess who doesn't care how much insulin cost.
You're going to be shot to hear that the richest man in the world does not give a fuck about how much insulin costs or asthma hailers. Yes, patient advocates have long called for drug pricing to be capped for there to be some humanity in the world. But you know who doesn't really give a fuck about that world's richest man boom he has shown to us and those people who die when they can't get their insulin, they'll be owned.
Well, we got to own the lips because it's the day ending. And why what's great is though he is feeling some pain from this, since Tesla's stock sung twenty six percent after his quote un quote that's Nazi saluted the Trump Probably I think.
It's called a straight armed hand gesture, as how I sign reported yes when Elon Musk made that straight armed hand gesture. And look, there's a reason corporations want to stay away from controversy, and it's things like this, right, I mean like there's a you know, the right tried to get woke to be as dangerous as straight armed hand salutes, but it turns out that it has not been long enough since the Holocaust for straight armed hand
salutes to come back. I'm sorry to tell you twenty six percent drop since the straight armed hand salute in Elon Musk's Tesla stock That means his enormous wealth took a hit by Luckily, people will still pay full price for insulin.
Yeah, and this equates to a four hundred billion dollar drop in the company's value, which yikes.
Yeah. Charlie Sykes is the author of the Newsletter to the Contrary and the book How the Right Lost Its Mind Welcome Back, Too Fast Politics, my friend, and I'm always so excited to get to talk to you. Charlie Sykes.
It's great to be back, Molly, considering everything.
I mean, yet, we're all every day we're not in Gemo. You just check that as a win.
Yeah, No, every day is a bonus at this point.
Really, I probably read the Times and the Washington Post cover to cover because I spent six hours in the last two days on the train going back and forth to DC and life Choices, oh man, and by the way you get there and the you know, the vibes may be bad, but the vibes in DC, wow.
Yeah. The vibe Share and Mikwan, Wisconsin, however, are pretty good, which is why I'm going to be staying around here as long as I can. Time to avoid the acella. I just think whatever, that's just me.
Yeah. I did encounter, however, a person on the street who had a huge tign that said no one elected Elon Musk and was just sort of wandering around like a huge banner.
Was it Chuck Schumer? That sort of seems to be the beginning and the end of his strategy. I don't know.
That's two public facing for elected Democrats. So let's talk about what's happening here, because we're clearly sliding into autocracy more quickly, even perhaps than any of us. I mean, I don't know. I think we're about where I thought we'd be. But it does not feel good, and you know, you think it's worse.
Oh yeah, it's Look, I mean, here's here's the thing. We've spent I don't know, god knows how long with our hair on fire saying people, look what he's going to do. He's going to do this, he will do that. And of course all the smart kids at the table said, does calmed down? You suffer from Trump derangement syndrome, or the guardrails will restrain him? You know, you worry too much, or that's so over the top to use that kind of language, and I have to say. Somebody asked me
the other day and I'm going to ask. I'm gonna do a podcast later today with Adam Kinsinghram and ask him this too. Now ask me about you know, well, how are you feeling about all of this? And I was running through the various emotions, and then the interviewer, you know, suggests, well, do you feel vindicated at all?
Right?
You know, absolutely, I'm not happy about this. But those of us that warned how bad it would be can sit back and go, Okay, if only you'd been warned. People, really, I mean, look what you got.
We did this whole YouTube series on Project twenty twenty five and just like this idea that they want to dismantle the administrative state and to use the unitary executive theory, which means that the executive is the boss and the rest and chucks and bounces are bye bye. And you know, I'm reading a pop ed in the New York Times about the unitary executive. There it is a little bit like being psychic. But the thing that like keeps me up at night is how do we get out of this?
Well, Okay, before we get to that, which is ask the important question, the one thing, and again we predicted the various things. They actually put it in writing. They had a blueprint, So people can be shocked, but they can't be surprised, right, And I.
Have to say, like Trump's lame. He was like, no, I don't know anything about it, and everyone's like, oh, okay, that's total bullshit. But why would he lie?
The thing that we did not expect? And I think that has been you know, frankly, the most alarming has been the complete capitulation of many of the institutions that we thought could stand up against Donald Trump. We spent you know, eight years talking about the collapse of the Republican Party, so we've seen that happen in real time.
I'm not sure that I ever thought that even the Senate Republicans would cave into the point that they would be confirming people like Pete Hegseith and Kel Gabbard and RFK Junior. But beyond that, I think we got an early indication how bad it was going to be when we saw all of the oligarchs in the corporate media line up to kiss Donald Trump's toes. And it's this premature capitulation which has been succeeded by the collapse of
almost any organized outside of the political world resistance. I mean, it's just like everyone just rolled over for him. And I think the success of his campaign of fear and intimidation, it's what's I think a little bit shocking. The fact that he tries a campaign of retribution fear is not surprising at all.
Right now, he said he would do it.
But the success that he's had in cowing civil society, even outside of the institutions of government, that I think makes you think, oh my god, this is how you slide into an orbon like our talkers the authoritarianism or as Peter Baker and I hesitate this. I don't think he's exactly is suggesting that it's putin esque, is that it's not just the Donald Trump and myers Ladimir Putin. He wants to be the fucking guy.
Right well, I think that is for sure true. I think the good news is America's much bigger than Russia and we've been a democracy for much longer, right or at all. That's the one thing I will say that I think is good news. The other thing that I just want to pull back and again, I know my priors, like I think a lot about like when people will talk about how they'll sort of spend time thinking about, you know, what went wrong or whatever, they tend to
just use those things to confirm their priors. So you'll see, you right, the far left person will say it's because of the far left things they'd wanted. The far right person will say it's because of So I know my priors are that I'm often overly optimistic, So I'm going to say this, But I think it's also an important point, which is the billionaires did in fact kow Tao and go along with it. But and it wasn't all of them.
It was the very It was the ones you would think would right, the Elons, and then the zux and then the Bezos. And that has been very disparting, especially because Bezos owns a Washington.
Post, which she is proceeding now to in Shitiphi.
Yes to and Shitiphi and the people who worked at the Washington Post and the people who and you know, everyone who was involved in all of their incredible coverage. It's terrible for them. But the one thing I would say is I do think that in these town halls, these people are not afraid of Donald Trump and Elon Musk and in the streets. I mean that woman with that big sign, she was not thinking, well, I have
ten other government contracts. I mean, part of this is coward leaness, and part of it is that they are so conflicted. I mean, like, for example, McCrone goes to see Trump and pretends to love Trump because he thinks he can game Trump. Yeah, so there are a couple different things going on, right because mcron And also we saw this with kure Stormer too. Cure Stormer brought a letter to the King to suck up him because he thought we can use this. So I mean there are
a couple of different things going on here. There's like bowing, but there's also this weird manipulation which may or may not work right.
Well, that's right. But and again, I think these town hall meetings are significant because number one, in an indication that that people are becoming re engaged in politics. They're not going to roll over, and they do have very much of a two thousand and nine twenty ten tea party field. A lot of Republicans are going to recognize that vibe because they were on the other side of it,
and they know where that led. I actually think those kinds of things may be more effective than mass demonstrations or mass rallies. And I also think that what you're seeing is and I've talked about this before, as the impact spreads, the real story is going to be in localities. It's going to be in families and communities who are
going to feel the impact of this. So, for example, in the last five minutes, my phone just buzzed from local newspaper here in Wisconsin breaking news federal workers, including at least one disabled veteran, fired from the VA in Madison. So every community is going to have a story. Wait, the Veterans Administration, Okay, that veteran is being laid off. You're having the stories of people who voted for Donald Trump who are now saying, geez, I didn't think the
deleverage were gonna come be my face. But I mean, and I'm also you know, and I wrote about this in my newsletter today, Molly, the cognitive dissonance here. You know, you have Trump promising that he's gonna be the voice of the little guy that forgotten American, But this budget plan they're pushing through is a huge giveaway to the
rich cuts aid to the poor. He promised that he was gonna end inflation and cut taxes, and these Trump tariffs are gonna boost the price of everything, and Americans seemed to get it. I mean, the candidate of law and order is now flying in these sex traffickers from Romania. No. Meanwhile, Elon Musk shows up at the cabinet and says, hey, guys, we're gonna get things wrong, Like I fucked up that whole thing about a Bola unbelievable. Then he lies about it.
But you know, we turns out the week we didn't know what we were doing. We eliminated this ebola prevention effort, but I restored it, and the officials are going, no, you didn't. So all that catches up.
There's so much in government is set up so that you don't have a moment where a billionaire donor comes into a cabinet meeting cos plays as secretary and then is like, whoops about that hole of bulah thing.
Yeah, And meanwhile, I'm going to take over air traffic control. Well, planes are like almost hitting each other. Oh, and I didn't even get to the fact that there's a measles outbreak. There's Trump sitting next to RFK Junior. Measles. By the way, for people who haven't been paying attention because it's been eradicated because of vaccination, we now have a child that died of measles, an unvaccinated child. What could possibly go wrong?
By the way, my quasi favorite headline of the day, and I'm not I'm not trying to pick on them, but it was. You know, his deadline is NBC measles outbreak could be politically perilous for Trump and RFK Junior. Well yeah, folks, it could also be perilous to the millions of kids who might die.
And meanwhile, measles, super super contagious are ready in rural parts of New Mexico. One of the things about measles, which is, by the way, easily you know this vaccine that's been around for decades and decades, super safe effective, there's not any treatment, right like, if you get it, you're fucked, okay, so like and if you're a getting and you're a little kid like likely you'll be fine. But then there's also you know, two three four percent
chance you die for a disease that's been eradicated. What I was struck by was Rfka Junior in that cabinet meeting, says, yeah, well one kid died and there are a lot of other people in the hospital, but they're all being quarantined. I was like, well, okay, he seems to have a situation at hand. None of that was true, right, they are actually being treated in the hospital.
See. I honestly think that in Trump's world, in Trump's mind, no problem actually has to be solved. All you have to do is say you solved it, and you know, like like the building, the wall and everything. The problem is is that there is a reality out there now. I still can't get my head past the fact that we had a million people died of COVID and you would think that be a transformative event in American history,
and it's been dropped into a memory hole. I am modest in my optimism about these things.
You know, there's a historical president for that, like the nineteen eighteen flu pandemic in fact that happened where people just were so traumatized. But I do agree whenever I've gamed out human behavior during this period, I've always been wrong. I've always been overly optimistic. But for all of Trump one we'd see like this guy and he'd be so mercurial and you wouldn't know what he was going to do. And now he is not that person. It's actually Elon Musk.
So do you think he misses not having a starring role in his own presidency?
This is the central drama of Trump two point zero, isn't it? The relationship with Musk. I did a podcast with Kara Swisher, who knows a lot more about Elon Musk than I do, yesterday, and she did point out that Donald Trump obviously always loves to be the center of attention, but he also loves distractions, and right now Elon Musk is a huge distraction. So he can use him to look like things are happening, but also be the flatcatcher, and if things turn to shit, he can
like distance himself. Well, that wasn't me, that was Elon.
Is that what she thinks will happen?
Well, no one knows what's going to happen. It's unsustainable to have two gigantic narcissists in one sack, right, I mean, there's only room for one. What I can't figure out is how Trump gets rid of Musk, particularly as Musk builds up his own cult, in his own power base. It's not as easy as getting rid of somebody like a JD. Vance, who he could snuff out like an old cigarette.
And JD Vance really does feel like a supporting member in this whole thing.
Barely, yeah, I.
Mean, nobody ever talks about Jady Vance like that cabinet meeting.
You could barely, you know, Yeah, clearly has been sidelined by others, but still he is the vice president. Again, we can't predict the future. I mean, I'm one of those, I'll be honest with you, Molly, I am one of those who has paid no attention to the whole Trump and twenty twenty eight talk. And now I'm thinking, you know, maybe that's a bit naive, you know, when you start to see the signs the third term project with pictures of Tunnald Trump is Julius Caesar and you know, twenty
twenty eight and beyond. The normal human reaction is to say, but a bunch of lunacy and bullshit, except we were governed by lunacy and bullshit, so like, hello.
Right, there was this James Carvell piece in the Times where he said you shouldn't that the only way to push back against trump Ism is just to let Trump make his own mistakes. But don't you worry. I mean, I think that's actually wrong. I like Carvell, but I think he's wrong about this. But I'm wondering, do you think that's the right way to go. I mean, don't you think people want their electeds to try?
Yeah? They do, and and I understand the point that he's trying to make. And ultimately Democrats can't stop Trump from doing a lot of this stuff. So the trajectory of American politics will be determined by whether or not trump Musk explodes on takeoff. But on the other hand, it's kind of nihilistic to say you should just sit back and do nothing because there is a country out there.
I mean, everything is not about partisan politics. You can't just simply say nihilistic, you know, you just let them ruin the country. Well, excuse me, let me speak up on behalf of the country that that is not a good idea. So you have a political, constitutional, and moral obligation to do something to the extent that you can. The realist in me says, you're not going to be able to block a lot of this stuff. But that doesn't mean you don't try. And I think it's important to try.
Right, And people elected you to try. I mean, they didn't elect you to solve.
Yeah. If you're sitting on your ass for the next two years, I'm not going to turn out and vote for you.
Yeah, I mean. It is the accelerationist case for Trump. It's the idea that Trump one point zero didn't inflict the kind of damage it wanted to, and so Democrats were warning against things voters didn't believe Trump would actually do because he wasn't able to the first time.
Did you read the article about the woman who voted for Trump and just lost her job. It's a very tragic story. Seems like a very very nice person.
They found the whitest, most attractive, blonde woman and they put her on the cover of the Watching Post. But yes, continue, it's very interesting.
Well, it is interesting because it sort of reminds us about how voters make decisions. That she's in the voting booth and she's undecided. She doesn't like Trump, she hates Trump. She voted for Biden four years ago. But and I have to take a deep breath here, this is the world we live in. She had seen a TikTok video in which Trump had promised that IVF would be free. Yes, she believed him, and therefore, in the voting booth decided
to vote for Donald J. Trump. And while my eyeballs are kind of like melting here and thinking, all right, we are dealing in a world in which we need to address the world as it is not the way we would like it to be.
Yes, Yes, And I think that's a really good point. And you know, one of the things Trump did was, you know, remember in Nevada, he was like, we're gonna do no taxes on tips. There is no world in
which they can do no taxes on tips. They're not even trying, right, this eight hundred and eighty billion dollar cut to medicaid, you know, in that budget, which by the way, is probably going to be mushed around a lot, but that original reconciliation, they didn't even try to address the no tax on tips because it's undoable.
Well, we'll see. I mean they are out there. Actually, you have members of Congress who are tweeting out that Democrats would it against no taxes on tips, no taxes on social Security, all these things. None of that was in the bill, and none of it's in the bill. Given this sort of alternative reality world where Trump basically will say no, wait, I did build a wall and Mexico did pay for it, how do you confront that?
Yeah, no, and I think that's right. You can't. You can't let the alternative reality world win.
Well, the alternative reality world is winning right now, right, but you.
Have to message the truth at least to try to. Yes.
The most fun I've had in the last twenty four hours is watching that video that Trump posted of himself remaking Trump Gaza with him as the Golden with the Golden statue. Have you seen this?
Oh?
I haven't seen that.
You need to go watch it. In terms of life, this is the world we live in now. The President of the United States actually retweeted that this is my gift to you. Have a wonderful weekend.
Amazing, Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Charley all right, bye bye.
Michael Wolf is the author of the book All or Nothing, How Trump Recaptured America. Welcome to Fast Politics, Michael Wolf, Kate, how are you. I'm good. So this book that none of us knew was happening until about a minute ago, is called All or Nothing? How Trump Recaptured America. When did you start working on this? How did you pull it together so quickly?
Tell me he wasn't quickly. I've been working on it for eighteen months, which is a long time for me, So from the beginning of the campaign, or really sort of from the spring of twenty twenty two. You know when I started this. This was I've been on the job.
And Trump met with you and has talked to you, right or now.
Trump has not met with me for this book. Whether he talked to me or not, we won't acknowledge that.
But he has things to say about the book.
He apparently does have things to say, although he has the same things to say that he says about my other books, so he doesn't read them anyway. So yes, it's suggest you get some basic boiler plate. But I did get the boilerplate.
Do you think when Trump cares enough to tweet about something, he knows that it will draw attention to it, and so he does it, or do you think it's purely emotional.
I think all attention is good attention in the Trump sphere, So if I get attention, he gets attention. My first book was when I he subsequently invited me to Marrow Lago and then claimed credit for the book. There was a moment when I saw Trump in Iowa during the Iowa primary. He was going by and then he pointed at me and said, I made that guy rich. So it is all about Trump. He doesn't have the capacity for seeing reality in a way that is not about him principally.
So in a bunch of Trump books, you've covered him a lot. How is Trump now?
The thing about Trump is that he's always the same. He is the simple machine who does the same thing over and over and over again. The difference is that, because it's all about holding the attention of his audience, he just has to ratchet up the intensity of what he's doing, hence what we've seen the last month. But the really extraordinary thing, and that's the story of this book, is how he can just go on, How nothing stops him,
nothing gives him. Not when he left the White House his two impeachments January sixth, being rejected by the leaders of his own party, and not subsequently for criminal indictments, it doesn't matter all of the things that would have reduced all of us mere mortals to a fetal position. Trump shrugs off, goes on uses in fact to his advantage.
So let's talk about that for a minute. Because one of the big differences I think between Trump one point oh and Trump two point oh is that Trump one point oh did not have people like Elon Musk in it.
I guess see, I disagree with that.
Oh.
You know, essentially, in Trump one point oh, the Elon Musk role was held by Steve Bannon key similarities, you know, including the cover of Time magazine implying that they are the real president. And Steve during those early months was this dominant figure and scary figure and the guy no one could quite figure out, and the guy out front of what was going on. And then Steve lasted six months. So I think that's a pretty good measure for Elon Musk's longevity.
I don't agree with anything Steve Bannon says, but I think he's very smart, and I think you trivialize him at your own peril. That said, don't you think that Elon Musk is in a completely different position than Steve Bannon, Because Elon Musk is the richest man in the world. You make Steve Bannon mad, you know, he's mad at you you make Elon Musk mad all that money goes away.
No, I don't think so. I mean, I don't think Trump is any you know. I mean Trump loves rich guys, but would he throw Elon Musk over Yeah, in a New York minute. Trump doesn't value anyone ultimately, and if they annoy him or irritate him, or he begins to perceive that the story is more about them than about him, he's going to react in the visceral way that he does.
So so far we've seen none of that.
Though, As I said, six months for Steve Mannon and I think six months for Elon Musk.
Tell me what you found writing this book, Like, what sort of things surprised you that you or that you may have not seen in the other Trump books you've read.
As I say, the indomitability of this guy, The fact that four criminal indictments, I mean a criminal indictment always brings one hundred percent of the time brings an American political figure down, You're out gone. And the fact that Trump could have four of these and none of them having had an effect, and the reason they didn't have an effect is because he didn't give in to them. He has done what nobody in politics or public life has practically speaking ever done before. Shrugged it off, say
I don't need you, I don't bend to you. You know, the liberal establishment, when these indictments began, said, well, it's going to be different in a courtroom, in a courtroom that's not Trump's world. Well that turned out to be entirely wrong, and he just made his world overshadow the world of each of these courtrooms.
So you cover a donorgate, really, well, this sort of donor class. Can you talk to us about the people in Trump world who keep it all, who give him the doll you know?
Well, he has this group of Palm Beach billionaires that surround him, and curiously, you know a lot of them had gravitated to Ron DeSantis and then came scurrying back. He added this this new class, I mean, the Silicon Valley class. At one point in the book he kept saying, too, is why am I going to fundraisers? I don't have to go to fundraisers. The crypto guys will give me everything I need.
Turned out to be true.
You know, I guess, I mean the Silicon Valley money just decided that it was to their profit to gravitate toward Donald Trump.
Right, And they did. You talk a lot about sort of the people around him. So who are the people around him and who were the people around him during the campaign, And has there been a shift there?
There's been a subtle, possibly meaningful shift. I mean, the people around him are still some of the core campaign group are there, notably this woman Susie Wiles, who ran the campaign with a discipline never seen around Trump before and who is now in the White House as the chief of staff. And I think, you know, that's an interesting thing because all of Trump's chief of staffs before
he didn't really know them. They came into the job and then they lasted experiod of time because they irritated him. Susie Wilds has now has a long relationship with Trump and she knows how to function around him, which is to say, her job is to make the trains run on time. And I don't think that she has any other pretense beyond that. She doesn't feel that she's in any way part of the Trumpian impulse that makes this White House run. She's the back office person.
So you don't think she's ideological.
She is not ideological. She's a political operative. I think her only measure was do you win or do you lose? And she was paired with another political operative, Chris Losovita. Now Chris Losovita is not in the White House, and I would presume that means that he fell a foul and was not offered a job, a commensurate job. And curiously, there are a lot of this outside group who the campaign had kept at arm's length, the Heritage Foundation, the
Project twenty twenty five people, the American First People. The campaign really had blocked them out, but they are now back in quite some force within the White House.
Yeah. And then talk about this woman, the printer, the human printer.
Yeah, this is the woman by the nam Natalie Harp, who has spent more time with him than any other person over the last several years. I mean, virtually every waking hour she has been at his side. She came into this role with zero political qualifications. She came in as the fetch it girl and rose by sheer dint of adulation, I suppose, or to be certainly among the most important, if not the most important people at his side. Almost during the campaign, almost all information flowed through her.
I mean, she's called the human printer, because she would follow him around on the golf course with a portable printer, wireless printer, and then she would at each whole print out articles or emails she thought he should see. Now the emphasis should.
Be on she thought.
So she is shaping and editing the information that gets to Donald Trump. The campaign team said, she gave him his uppers and his downers.
Content wise.
Yeah, she would give him the articles that confirmed anything that he wanted to believe, and conversely the articles that would get him outraged, and then he would issue a various vective.
That's a lot of power. So she's basically making the PDB. Is she doing it still?
Oh? Yeah?
By his side, you know. And there was always a thing, you know, you know, well, what is she what's the relationship? Here? Is she the bit on the side. And then everybody kind of rejected that and said said, no, she is clearly and abjectly in love with him, but he is And they would say, probably the most devastating thing you can say about Donald Trump that the estimation was he was quote post sexual.
Do you think that would make him curious if he had heard that?
Yeah, I think anything that treads in any way on ego territory with Donald Trump would be for him a treacherous betrayal.
So one of the things that I think a lot about when I talk to people on the Democratic side is how much Donald Trump works the media because Democrats leadership democrats, you know, members of Congress and members of the Senate and governors. And we saw this in Biden world a lot. Biden World was very angry at the mainstream media.
Let me just cut the short, because there is nothing at issue here for Donald Trump except the media. Nothing else counts. He's not interested in the legislative agenda, he's not interested in policy formulations, He's not interested in anything but the media. How he reacts to the media, how the media reacts to him. This is all a man who's spent fourteen years as the star of a top
rated reality show. Fourteen years. This is in his bloodstream the attention of the audience, and that is through the media, which he is expert at using and determined to dominate.
So do you feel like Donald Trump talks to the mainstream media despite being angry at them?
He uses the mainstream media. I mean, talking to sort of implies some kind of discourse.
Right, what does that mean.
It means that he is the consummate show. He knows how to push the buttons of the media. He knows what will work in the media. Everything he does, everything he thinks about, is directed at that.
You think Democrats could take a page from that.
No, I think Donald Trump is entirely unique. I think you know the Democrats are no Democrat who has spent fourteen years as the star of a reality television show. I mean again, I always say I think that Donald Trump is an aberration. When he passes all of this stuff Magaworld, trump Ism, it all dies with him.
Thank god, thank you, thank you, Michael Wolf.
Thank you.
No, no moment.
Second, Jesse Cannon.
My junk Fast, we have a very very shady fellow. In a podcast filled with talk of shady fellows. One Andrew and Tristan Tate have arrived in Florida, and let me tell you something.
Meet Paul Ron is not happy, too so.
Lazy for Rome right, too crimey for Romania, but sent to Florida. So again, it's not clear because why would it be, And the most transparent White House in America did not make it clear whether or not they imported these two alleged sex traffickers. We don't know how they got here, we don't know why they're here, but we do know that Meeta Ron is not happy.
It seems like a lot of Maga world is not happy because they thought we were going to get rid of these sex traffickers. Of the alleged rapist agitate is on tape describing beating women. It is a very gruesome and ugly, ugly tape, and I could see why they would not be happy with this after mister Trump's rhetoric.
Exactly exactly, and so again an alleged brothers who allegedly did unspeakable acts are now being imported allegedly to Florida. That's it for this episode of Fast Pollings. 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.