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 Supreme Court Justice Sonya so Demayer says that court decision stand whether one particular person chooses to.
Abide by them or not.
We have such a great show for you today. MSNBC contributor Charlie Sykes comes by to talk about the state of our world. Then we'll talk to Congresswoman Becca balland about the Republican attempt to rewrite American culture.
But first the news.
Malli, this fella Donald Trump last night Friend of the Show, Lauren so'donald. I think he kind of like won the week of summing something up, and it's an image we're going to see at the top of articles for decades to come, calling it the most powerless image of a president ever.
You'll be shocked to hear that Donald J.
Trump is basically working for the richest man in the world. That video was a sort of incredible video of Elon, one of his many children and Donald Trump, and then Donald Trump sort of sat there whell Elon talked about how he's running the government. There was a really good picture of the little boy saying like you're sitting in my dad's chair to Donald Trump, which I think really
sums the whole thing up. The best moment in the discourse, the truly cursed discourse, was when Elon admitted that he gets things wrong, which that was an incredible bit of sorcery. So the best moment of the whole cluster fuckery was Elon Musk said, so I think it's really important and representative. Caesar had this really good point, which was Elon Musk is looking in to these sixty five dollars a day that grandmothers get the sort of very low payments, and
Elon Musk gets eight million dollars a day. But the thing I wanted to talk about was Elon Musk. So he was asked by a journalist, how can we make sure that all the statements that you said were correct so we can trust what you say? And he said, some of the things I say will be incorrect and should be corrected. Okay, I mean, please visit me in a pineapple.
Under this, say, one would think the guy who does everything he had to get journalistic outlets the funded and make sure that voices that dissemboated against him get smushed. Really feels that way, so seriously, it came from the bottom of his heart.
I think some things I say maybe incorrect, they may be wrong.
But what you were really taken by, Molly was little Lex picking his nose next to Donald Trump and Donald Trump just looking so happy about it.
Yeah.
I mean he is known to love children and germiness, so that makes a lot of sense.
So Trump promised on day one that he would bring down prices, and so he got his first economics report a few weeks into office. Millian, I'm going to shock you here. He didn't do it.
Yeah.
I want to point out that I went to go get eggs today because I couldn't get eggs on Fresh Direct because they were sold out, something I have not experienced since the pandemic.
And there was a little.
Sign at the grocery store which said eggs are more expensive. Remember when Donald Trump said he was going to make eggs cheaper. Yeah, inflation has ticked up to three percent from two and a half. That is the wrong direction. He wanted to go down. In case you're wondering, up is bad and down is good when it comes to inflation. Trump, He's continuing on with tariffs, with the steel tariffs, he has some of these. You know, we'th ten percent extra
on China tariffs. Look, the tariffs are going. You have Trump fundamentally misunderstanding the tariffs do not, in fact make money for the government. I don't know how many times people must have explained to him how tariffs work, but he seems still not to get it. I wonder what inflation will have to tick up too before he gets it.
You'll be shocked to hear his response to all this is to tweet Biden inflation.
Up, Yes, Biden inflation up.
Yes.
Donald Trump wants us to know that even though Biden is not president, he is still president.
Yeah, obviously everything bad is Biden's president. Well, you know I have read the QAnon post two so as well. We last discussed on Sunday that Elon and JD were starting to talk about disobeying judges, and now Trump of course has to tick to the next level and he's threatening them.
Yeah.
I'm shocked. I am shocked that Donald Trump is doing this. Who could have seen this coming? Certainly not me.
This guy esc going things.
Never so he openly threatens judges who block his orders, like we shouldn't be surprised. He openly threatened Congress people, He's openly threatened senators. He's openly threatened people we know and love. I mean, this is like the this is the way he does it. He's this is Donald Trump's thing is if you can't get people to do what you want, then you threatened them. He's openly threatened Mexico and Canada. And I mean, if you had a I mean, isn't there a list of all the people he's threatened?
And you know this is his this is the way he works. So the question is, and I think this is a real question, is will these judges be brave? Will these judges be safe? Well, I mean remember Donald Trump has pardoned January sixth riders, So he's pardoned people who committed violence in his name. When you look at the way autocracies grow, it tends to be that the autocrat wants to have a sort of defact military, a militia that is oil only to him. So you could
see where this. You know, these people could be heard and that's a real thing that could happen, and that historically has happened. So I'll be watching to hope that that does not happen, because you know, once you go down that road of disassembling the norms and institutions that have kept us safe for so many years, you know, I don't know how you put the genie back in the bottle.
That I do not know either, speaking of genies that are in a bottle for now to see, Gabbert has been confirmed in will Mitch McConnell the only Republican to vote against her.
Welcome to the Resistance, Mitch McConnell. He created the world in which Donald Trump was able to become president. Anytime you want to have any kind of pity for this man who is now in a terrible position that he put himself in, you can remind yourself that literally, none of this would be possible without Mitch mcconne, none of it. Charlie Sykes is the author of the Newsletter to the Contrary and the book How the Right Lost Its Mind. Welcome back to Fast Politics, Charlie Sykes.
Molly, good to be back with you. Are you not entertained yet?
We're having this discussion as the answer to the question how are you?
This is a hard question. You know, you don't want to say, Hey, I'm living the dream. Things are going great. It's like, Okay, my hair is actually not on fire. You know, I haven't had an aneurysm today reading the news, so I suppose that we're getting through it.
But damn, damn exactly. I mean, I spent the last hour watching the Doge hearing on C on C Span three. Did you know that there's a C Span three? I did because you Span junkie, but.
I usually watch C spent Ocho. Hey, that's a really inside joke that nobody remembers anymore.
I don't remember it, but I laughed because I'm polite.
Yeah, So for Lent, I'm going to give up watching Doge hearings and all of those things. Is it Lent yet?
Please?
I just need to give it up.
It will not be hard. Let me tell you what was.
The highlight, because I actually am somewhat curious after that. I'm looking at the picture from the Oval Office yesterday that Laurence o'donald said, he's like the most humiliating, the most powerless image of a president of the United States ever created by camera, where there's a sulking Donald Trump sitting there with Elon Musk and one of his progeny. We live in Elon Musk's ketamine soaked world. Don't West, do you learn anything?
I watched this hearing, I turned it on. You know what's so interesting about watching a full congressional hearing versus like seeing the clips, which we're also used to, is that they're quite boring. And even the most insane member of Congress has many minutes of saying things that are maybe not brilliant and maybe not what you agree with, but quite boring. So this is a Marjorie Taylor Green.
She leads this committee, if you can believe it. And so she gave the opening statement, which was, you know, I mean ironic. Perhaps she complained about political theater.
Can I give you the bad news, like right up front? Please, You're never gonna get those brain cells back, Molly thy god, you will never get the brain cells back. I would sit and watch a Marjorie Taylor Green hearing except that I have I don't know root canal surgery. I have an appointment to have all my fingernail pulled out. I'm thinking of some other things, but I don't know. I want fire iNTS to eat my scrotum.
I mean anything.
Can I tell you my favorite story. Can we just like change the money here because it's getting kind of getting cut, kind of dark.
We'll stop talking about politics. It's too dark.
Go on, Yes it's about politics. But I actually find one of the ways to stay saying is to go to the bottom story of the day. They actually like to you know, like it's not going to be the end of the world. We're not gonna have a nuclear holocaust about it. It doesn't involve ethnic cleansing or anything like that. So this one, I think is kind of beyond parody. You see the story that the White House barred the AP reporter from the Oval Office, the Associated
Press reporter. Did you read the explanation? Why see? I saw the headline and I thought, you know, this is inside media baseball. Nobody cares, okay, so one reporter gets in, one reporter doesn't. And then you read the details. The White House blocked an Associated Press reporter from an event in the Oval Office after demanding the news acn see alter its style on the Gulf of Mexico, which President Trump insists be renamed the Gulf of America. That's right, baby,
So much free speech, so much free speech. So now we have the media required to use the government sanctioned language, and if you do not use the terms from Big Orange, you're out.
So I mean, America, Golf of America. You can't, you know, you gotta you gotta use it. You gotta use it, Gulf of America or else, big trouble.
The reporter is n't have to stand around in a circle and somebody points to them and goes, what is it called? Gulf of America, sir? Gulf of America, man, Gulf of America. I mean, is this the new the new normal?
Yes, yes it is. And also I have to tell you that is maybe not as disturbing as what I noticed. I mean, look, Golf of America. It's very stupid, but I think it's largely harmless. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe there's some manifest destiny.
It's all relative, right.
Right, relative, it's relatively harmless. But last afternoon in the Oval and his kid.
You know, it's so funny. It's like, as a working mom.
Do you know how many times working moms, you know, the babysitter doesn't show up and you have the kid and you have to bring it. And here's Elon, who has like the richest man in the World a staff of like, you know, I'm sure, I mean, maybe he doesn't, but.
I would assume he has many child options.
Yeah, you can definitely for childcare.
Yeah, just dragging that kid around pretty amazing. But what actually got me really agitated last night was that Elon was talking about how this was important for democracy.
Of course, at the risk of becoming a little serious, I think that one of the things that's really interesting is watching as this process goes on, how how language is drained of its meaning. And again, this is not something that was not predicted. I mean, George o'well wrote about this, but all of the language of democracy, the forms of democracy, the rituals of democracy used to underline
and destroy democracy. And we're watching this in real time and it is it is almost like watching a like a fictional account of and how would the media report this, what would this look like? How would the news report this sort of thing? And we are seeing he had Elon must talking about democracy and transparency.
He said, restoring democracy. That was what he said. He's restoring democracy. I guess from Trump's first term. I don't know, you know, there's a continue Yes.
How many votes did he get? By the way, I mean, yes, I mean, I know this is going to get old, but it's not going to get old for me. Who elected Elon Musk. I love listening to these guys talk about the unelected bureaucrats. And you know, the most powerful unelected bureaucrat in history, of course is Elon Musk, right.
Made rich through government subsidies.
Yes, and and by the way, apparently he's going to self police all of his conflicts of interest.
I trust him.
Why would he lie?
Why would he lie? So my newsletter to the country
newsletter today is you know, making America corrupt again. And it's like, you list all the things that Trump has done over the last I mean, nobody should be surprised by any of them, right, but but it is kind of amazing that you just run through the pardons of Eric Adams, the pardons of Rod Bogoyevitch, you know, firing the the head of the Office of Government Ethics, saying we're not going to enforce the law against you know, bribery, you know formula, all those things, and then there's Elon
Musk standing there and it's like holding my beer, you know, I mean, I am the biggest moocher in America right now. This is this is a conflict of interest that is like a biblical scale, and we're at the point now it's kind of shrugging about we're probably gonna get through this entire podcast without talking about the fact that apparently Cash Battel perjured himself the FBI, because that's like, so a member of Donald.
Trump's yes, go on, go go go.
I member, a member of Donald Trump's cabinet of future felons actually perjured himself because it was a day that ends and why I mean that that's where we're at here right Yes.
I mean that was, by the way, an incredible, incredible scoop. I was on Nicole yesterday. We love Nicole, one of the greats. You and I are both big Nicole fans. And Dick Derbin was on in the middle and he was talking ashion faced right talking about how Cash Patel they had an FBI member go to the whistleblower to talk about how he had seen Cash Pattel perjer himself.
And it won't matter the woke FBI, Yeah, it won't matter. This is where we're at right now. So did Dick Durbin provide any indication that Okay, now we Democrats are going to do something about this.
No, in fact, he said there's something easy. But he did, in fact say there's really nothing we could do. I was like, okay, but we laugh to keep from crying. And also I would like to add, I do think it's good. I want to say something a little bit nice about Democrats. Please. I know that's not in vogue right now, but it is good that they set up a whistleblower line.
Yes, no, I mean those are the kinds of things that you need to do, the problem is that all the mechanisms are collapsing. So I mean this this comes back to, you know, what everybody is talking about, because it is I think the biggest question what happens if the administration ignores the courts, because right now the only guardrail that is left that's going to stop this or hold him accountable is the federal judiciary and the US
Supreme Court. But there's you know, and I am I'm not as cautiously optimistic as my friend David French is about the Supreme Court. But the larger question. You can see that MAGA is already gearing up to say that you know, you made your ruling. You enforce it. JD. Vance is out there. Hey, by the way, can I just mention that my Jada Advance?
Wow, that fucking guy.
Oh yeah, that fucking guy. What a shitty week, heesa, haven't it?
Wait? Tell me why?
Three things? I mean? Number one, during that Super Bowl interview, Donald Trump throws him under the bus, right, not go on yet, not my success. But then yesterday JD. Vans gets bitch slapped by are you ready for this? The Pope and the ABA, the American Bar Association, which is a long statement about you know, how we ought to respect the rule of love. But let's go back to the Pope, because JD. Vans was giving us the gospel
according to JD. Vans, you know, the order of Love, which meant that we can basically fuck over the rest of the world and as long as we take care of our own family. And JD. Vans is like, mister Catholic, I am a Catholic, a Roman Catholic. The Pope himself issues a letter basically saying JD. You're full of shit and reminding him of the parable of the Good Samaritan, which means, of course that maga which is all about God and religion and Christianity is going to have to
go to war with the Church. And I am personally sitting here waiting. I would love to hear with Cardinal Timothy Dolan, who's been sipping up to Donald Trump and actually is a longtime friend of mine. I would like to know, So, Cardinal Dolan, damn, we're going here. You're going going with your new buddy Donald or with the Pope who is saying that Donald and jd are full of shit? I just really want to know the answer to this.
I really yeah, I'm not hard to imagine that. Is he allowed to say no to Trump?
Well, I don't know. Is he allowed to say no to the Pope? Is the Catholic See Molly, you hear the thing about the Catholic Church. They had this hierarchy thing and there's all kinds of like traditions and stuff. Now, I do understand that for a lot of Catholics that we of course will obey the pope as long as we agree with him. But if he breaks with say
Donald Trump, you know that's a bridge too far. So you know, I don't expect that you'll see like a mass rethinking of Christian doctrine as a result of all of this, like, I'm still in favor of these mass deportations because of John twenty three of whatever. I just I really do would like to know. I wouldn't would kill my brain cells kill me. In the Gospel according to Luke, where Jesus talks about why mass deportations are
a good thing because generally deportations are negatively portrayed. Okay, I'm getting on the Bible.
Yeah they are getting a little biblical here, but yes, no, a really good point about you never want the pope to be subtweeting you. I mean that is a sign that things have gone horribly sideways.
I think that's fair, mister Catholic. I mean, you know, I mean a lot of people wouldn't care at all about that. But given the fact that they've wrapped themselves, and what would Jesus do? And here you have the Pope going, excuse me, mister Frans, you asked what would Jesus do? Jesus would not do this. Yes, no, he wouldn't.
Say yes, yes, no. Listen, I watched conclave, so I know all about Catholicism.
Okay, good, I have to.
Say, I really it was quite I thought it was very good. But I'm not a Catholic. But I do think what you're saying is really important that while this is going on and there's a lot of criticism, there's you know, people are really mad, mad at the Democrats, mad at the Republicans, mad about the sort of all of it. But and the Pope is mad with good reason.
But I wonder as we're sort of looking at this, I'm going to say something that's that is actually keeping me up at night, which is Trump's polling is still not as bad as it should be.
Discuss Okay, Yeah.
Isn't that upsetting you? Like?
Did you see that? Agay?
Like what?
Okay, Well, let's see, he said, Molly, when you put this in the long train of things that have upset and depressed us, it's just like in case case you missed it, he won this election. So as a never Trumper, going back from at the time he came down the Golden escalator, I would say, Molly that I've I've had a lot of practice with disappointments. I have, I think.
And again, we're not laughing because this is funny. We're laughing because this is so incredibly tragic.
Continue, Yeah, because we have to find the humor in tragedy. So it is distressing. However, this is one where I think, take a deep breath and see how this all plays out. So what's the big story this morning inflation is we're
ring back. He's talking about ethics, gaza and doing this, and I'm thinking, okay, right now, we have this kind of psycho sexual dopamine hit of breakage and strength and movement, and it is you know, the entertainment value is strong, as as anyone that ran the Colisseum and would would tell you about it. There's there's the moment where you go, shit, how many of those Christians written by lions don't bring
on some more lions. But once we figured out all the things that are broken and what it means for them to be broken, it will return to normal. Now. The bad news is America is not going to wake up and go, you know, fuck this guy. Seventy percent of Americans disapproved, but I think he's going to go back down to his normal low forties, upper thirties in terms of popularity because a lot of things that he's doing right now, it's all happening too fast to process.
I mean, you and I do this for a living. It's too fast for us to process. The average person who's living their life just is not doing it. However, sooner or later this is going to impact people's lives. And the thing about Elon.
Musk, the richest man in the world, who.
Does not know the damage he's doing, He doesn't know the downstream effects, and he doesn't give a shit.
A good example of this is I tweeted this weekend, the richest man in the world is cutting funding for cancer research, and he wrote back because he knows he's the richest man in the world. By the way, can we pause for a minute. Here is he searching the richest man in the world on Twitter?
Elon Musk knows who you are.
Oh, no, I'm going to the camps. But the point is, he said, WT, I'm not doing that right, So, but it cuts to the nah are cuts to cancer research, are cuts to food allergy research, their cuts to environmental research, they're cuts to all autoimmune diseases, everything, Right, So do you think here's the twenty billion dollar question. Do you think that he doesn't is he lying or does he just is not clear to him that that's what's happening.
See, these are all excellent questions, and let me go back to your tweet, because you were actually dead on this is happening. Cancer researchers all across America are saying that it's happening. One university after another is saying, you understand that this will be this effect. For some reason, this got under his skin and he felt the need to respond. I think with Elon Musk, and of course we always have to have a little bit of humility and trying to get inside the minds of these guys.
And depends what the drug load is on any given day. I don't think number one, I don't think he has any idea the effect. This is what my point is. They're breaking things, but they don't know what they have broken yet, they don't know all of the effects. There's no way. He thinks of himself as the richest, most powerful, smartest man on earth, but he is not the smartest man. He doesn't know what he's doing. He's throwing gasoline around, he's burning shit, and then people come up and say,
look look what you just burned down. He goes, oh, no, no, I didn't do that. Well, you may not have meant to do that, but you did do that. Now there's the other part of Elon MS that I think is a complete sociopath where he doesn't give a fuck, He does not he does not care. But look, the reality is that many of the people who are ultimately going to you know, I have to decide on the nation's priorities.
They may you know, be deplorable, but they're also elected officials, and I think that there are certain things that even the congressmen and senators are gonna like win SAT. They may go along with cutting off aid to Africa foreign aid. That may be okay, but when it's their constituentatie.
Bread in Alabama, if you're cutting a percentage of the largest employer in the entire state of Alabama. So much of history is filled with wealthy people making philanthropic donations in order to quell the peasant class. You and I are in the class here, so because we're not billionaires.
So bread and circuses, right.
You know, you think of the MEDICIESE to the Rockefellers to the you know, the Great University is museums, libraries, Carnegie is robber barons, all of them donating money to charity. Is this reverse philanthropy is this the opposite.
That's a really interesting point that and what would we call.
That reverse philanthropy. I wrote about it this week in my column.
Yeah, okay, well I need to go back because that's exactly what's going on here. And I think that's one of the reasons why I think that this may have an expiration date. You mentioned the polls. The polls are suggesting that a lot of voters, including Republican voters, are already souring on Elon Musk and the influence that he has. Donald Trump obviously is still all in. But you know those pictures yesterday, And I'm sorry to trivialize this, I'm sorry to dumb this down.
No, No, I think it's an important point.
Yes, those are humiliating pictures. And the one thing that Donald Trump understands is humiliation. He cannot tolerate it. But as I've said before, and I think I've said this to you, but this is a big problem for Donald Trump getting rid of Elon Musk. How do you get rid of a problem like Elon Musk? How do you fire Elon Musk? He's too powerful, He's got his own cult of personality. He can do a lot of damage. Donald Trump does not want to feel that he's beholden
to anybody. But you are right, and I think that this is the age of the you know, the billionaire broligarchs, oligarchs. But the average American is not seeing them doing wonderful humanitarian things. What they're seeing them I'm doing is cutting safety nets, cutting programs, you know, cutting programs for children and the poor and for medical researchers. And I don't know, Mollie,
the rules of politics have changed almost beyond recognition. But my gut tells me that you know there will be a reckoning.
Charlie Sikes.
Please come back, Molly John Fast anytime.
Becca Ballant represents Vermont's Soul Congressional district. Welcome back to Fast Politics, congress Woman beck Up.
Nice to be here, Mollie. Love talking with you.
Before we started recording, you said I was at a crazy committee hearing, and I said, oh, I was just watching doge the Marjorie Taylor Green committee hearing on C Span three, which involved her saying that she did not believe in political theater.
I was like, really, that is literally all she does, literally all she does, and so I nearly choked on my die Coke when she said that, So tell me what committee you were on.
I was a judiciary committee, and that is headed up by Jim Jordan.
It's known to be actually a serious committee as opposed to Doge.
It is a serious committee. And yet were we dealing with serious issues that we could be dealing with around civil rights or anti trust.
I'm gonna guest, now, tell us what you were cracking down on.
We were once again cracking down on the Biden Harris administration. Censorship.
They're not in office anymore.
Wait, what are they censoring?
Literally, we have so many examples of what the Trump administration is doing right now to censor information and speech. And so you come out of these hearings sometimes you just feel like we are living in alternate realities when the folks are in charge. It's really disturbing, Molly, I mean, I laugh about it, but it's really disturbing.
Yeah, no, no, I think what's important here. We laugh to keep from crying, but also we laugh because it's so depressing. But this is not just about weaponizing government. This is for fun and for free. You know, this is not just about saying Pithy's stuff on Fox News, though it doesn't even need to be pithy for these guys. This is actually about taking away Medicare, Medicaid, cutting government programs, and we're seeing that happen in real time.
Absolutely, and it's about gutting government programs that we all rely on. But it is also a textbook playbook for authoritarianism. Everything that they're doing, attacking education, right, attacking knowledge, the propaganda machines, the firing civil servants, getting civil servants to spy on each other. I mean, it is textbook. And you know, one of the things that I talked about in the last committee here was there are even banning
words like women in federal research. You know, he just keeps telling people this is not about fighting Republicans on policy. This is about a whole hostile takeover of government. And it's so scary and I think people don't want to necessarily see it for what it is, but that's what's happening.
Yeah, So let's talk about the inspector generals. The most important thing is yesterday we had Elon in the Oval office with his kid. Yes one does, by the way, bringing his kid to work, because obviously the richest man in the world could not find a babysitter for his three or four year old and instead decided to bring him to work.
And then he talked about.
How he wanted to restore democracy, which I thought was very Orwellian.
Yes, it is.
Right, And then he also mused and mused and mused about waste on the same day that Donald Trump had fired more inspector general. So explain to me how they're going to fight waste and fraud, right, and programs they don't like which they consider to be waste and fraud by firing the people who are supposed to monitor waste in fraud.
Yeah, And as you said, you know it's it's Orwellian. And folks who don't know that reference, right, it is, you know, looking at essentially the real thought police. Right when people tell you in Manny of Orwell's novels that what you see is actually not the truth. We control the truth. And you know, it goes back to Trump naming his social media company truth Social. I mean, it's the same as the state news agency in Russia, right, as a similar name. Right. So, there were so many
things that were fascinating about that press conference. One of the ones that I thought was just so revealing is that Musk said, oh, yeah, well, I'm going to say things that are inaccurate. It's like, that's that's I want to say things that are inaccurate. I'm going to spread them on my social media platform. Trump meanwhile, is sitting on the side sort of as an add on this seems pretty clear who was in charge of running that.
And yeah, if you fire the inspector generals, if you tell entire agencies not to show up for work, which is what has been happening right whether it's the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau again a bureau set up to fight waste fraud and abuse, or if it is firing people who are or laying people off or telling them, you know, to stop work while we continue to pay them while they're not working, and you have billions of pounds of food aids sitting in warehouses and nobody is watching over
those programs. That isn't going to fight waste fraud and abuse. It is saying one thing while doing something completely different. And let's not forget the man that we have looking supposedly at waste fraud and abuse is not a disinterested actor. He has billions of dollars in federal subsidies. And federal contracts from you know, this government, and people are like, no, he's doing this out of the goodness of his heart. No way, nothing that Musk has ever done has been
out of the goodness obvious heart. He's a billionaire businessman. He's always looking at his bottom line. That is why he intervened in our last budget negotiations in the last Congress, because there was something in that bill that would impact his business in China. That's what that was all about. We have to keep following the money.
Yeah, No, I mean I'm struck by how much billionaires have really proven themselves to be very bad stewards. I mean, look at them in journalism, right. You know, we were told that if we sold all the newspapers to billionaires, that billionaires would be philanthropic with their desire to help journalists. But in fact, what they meant was that they were going to do whatever helped to their bottom line or
in this case, spaceships. I mean, if you think about the situation with the spaceships, I mean, bezos biked an editorial and I would even pause for a minute and pull back for a second and say billionaires were super mad at the Biden administration for the work they did with the antitrust. I mean, there are other things that made them mad, but that was one of the big things. Biden administration was so ham handed and unable to explain what they were doing that most voters didn't know about it.
But I would love you to talk a little bit about that sort of antitrust stuff and the consumer stuff that the Biden administration did do that made billionaires so mad.
Right It's clear that these billionaires sitting right behind the president on an inauguration day in front of people that he even tapped to be in his cabinet, was a very public statement. It was meant to indicate who had the real power. Is meant to chill all of the work that we're trying to do in Congress. And look, we have gross economic inequality right now in this country. It's been building in earnest for the last four days.
Any kind of action that would actually help working people right now is not the work that's being done in Congress. Right So, right now they have the House, the Senate, and the White House. Have they introduced anything around prescription drug pricing? Have they kepped the interest rates on credit cards? Have they built more housing. Nothing that they're doing is fundamentally going after the way in which big business is doing really, really well and the rest of us are
getting squeezed. And so we should have had a hearing today on the fact that inflation is rising once again, right, that would have been an issue that we all could have gotten behind. But instead we're back to Hunter, Biden and the laptop over and over and over again. And it shows, in my opinion, it shows a deep contempt for the people who voted for Trump and all of these Republican members in the House who are supposedly standing up for them. It is just so disrespectful to the people.
Yeah, yeah, I mean no, obviously, And the reality is all of this is theater, right, they don't not care about I mean, you saw that the Trump administration cut something from negotiating Medicare prices.
Yeah, I mean you know this. You've been following this as closely as I have, which is it is about the chaos, It is about flooding the zone, making it difficult for us to follow all the threads of what they're doing. But what it adds up to is they're absolutely not looking out for working people right now, because if they were, they would be trying to negotiate down the drug prices that so many seniors in this country
right depend on. They would be standing up to all of the price gouging that happens within, you know, the grocery industry.
And they're not.
They're absolutely not, And they're starting at trade war with our closest friend and ally, Canada.
Yeah. I feel like when you cover the Trump admin.
There are things that are stupid, but theatrics, like Golf of America. Then there are things that are direct threats to democracy, like the impoundment stuff with the OMB right where the Office of Management and Budget is holding money that's congrecially allocated that is now being held because Trump doesn't want to do it right. That's the sort of second basket. And then there's the third, which are the
things that it's not clear or what is what? What do you think are the sort of things you're seeing right now that are the most kind of troubling.
Yeah, I would say the overarching answer to that is it's incredibly troubling to me that my Republican colleagues are willing to give up all of the power that we have as members of Congress, as members of the legislative branch to be a check on the executive power right there, and that Speaker Johnson, who is Speaker of the entire House, that is his job, right is to protect our power and our authority are to be a check on the executive make sure that our bills and the money that
we have appropriated goes to those programs that help our constituents back home. And the fact that there has been no pushback about the impounment issues, that there has been no pushback, that Johnson is giving up all of his power, and our Chair of Appropriation, Tom Cole, someone who in the past has been seen as kind of a reasonable, governing minded Republican, is falling right in line. That is the most terrifying thing, because democracy only works if there
is a countervail enforce. If there isn't, then it's not a democracy.
So clearly, some of these people think that they are able to manipulate Prompt Right, some of these people clearly think that they can go along with some stuff but not go along with other stuff, and that if they do that, eventually they'll get the better of him. Right, I mean, that does seem possible. I don't know that anyone has ever that that's ever worked, But that's clearly the play. And some of these people really do, just like MTG, have just given up and just want to
help mister Trump. Is there still the thing where there was in Trump twenty sixteen where Republicans are like, this guy, we just have to manipulate him, We just have to get through it.
Yeah. I mean there's a handful who are are clear rid about the fact that he's not really in charge here. They don't actually like that.
They don't like that Elon's in charge exactly.
They won't speak up, they won't push back. There are, as you said, there's the true believers. There's a lot of opportunists, Molly, a lot of opportunists.
Well they are politicians, right, I hate hey, tell you no offense or anything.
But they are amassing power for power's sake. I know from speaking to some of them, they think that they can outlast Trump and trump Ism. But what they've created a monster here that black is white, up is down. There is no truth, there are no facts. Nobody trusts government anymore. They created that, right, It's been a twenty five year drumbeat of this, and so do they not think at some point they will also turn on them because they're in charge. Now they're in charge, it falls
to them to actually do better for their constituents. But I can't tell you how difficult it is to watch day in and day out these people be such horrible cowards when they know that what is happening is not good for our country and it's not good for their constituents.
Yes, agreed. Now what do you think the play here is that they're just trying to sort of not have the mean tweets?
I mean, what are they afraid of?
Well, if you're a normal Republican, if you are someone who is not a celebrity, right, like a person who actually works. I don't want to say who, but just like someone like that.
They are, you know, not Nancy Mays.
And you are pretty sane and you're trying to represent your district.
You don't want to get.
The mean tweeds, and you don't want to end up in the crosshairs, and you don't want to primary challenge. But you're thinking is what You're gonna put your head down and survive for four years because this won't end in tears. I mean, doesn't everyone see where this is going.
That is what is so shocking is they don't seem to see where this is going. But yeah, it's that sense of like I'm going to keep myself and my family and my staff out of the bullseye. And I just want to connect a dot here too, that the House and Republicans in the House are not seeing profiles
and courage in the Senate. Okay, you just had Tulsea Gabbard confirmed as the Intelligence chief, and you know that there are senators who know full well that that is incredibly dangerous Republicans, and so if the House members are thinking in themselves, Look, those folks have six year protections on their and they're not sticking their necks out. And I've only got two years. Why the hell should I stick my neck out. It's sick, It's absolutely sick.
It's a little bit contagious, right exactly.
And this cowardice is contagious. Encourage is contagious, and we're not seeing a whole lot of courage right now. It's basic human dignity too, and I'll see a whole lot of that either.
Yeah, I wonder if you could sort of explain to me what people are very mad and they're mad at democrats too.
I have to say, like, there was an article on Axios.
Yesterday about how leadership was mad at all those organizations for being so on them. Who knows if it's true, it's Axios, whatever, But I wonder if you could talk about are your constituents mad and if so, do you feel that you're able to fight for them in the way that you want to? And do you feel that leadership is listening to you?
Yeah? So I would say there are certainly some segments of my constituency that are feeling mad. I would say the overarching sentiment right now is fear and anxiety. And I hear a lot from constituents how deeply concerned they are that we are heading towards authoritarianism. Is an ex
book case of taking this step by step. I have tried in earnest in the last few weeks to just be as open and as transparent and as direct as I can with constituents about what I'm doing, what's happening, communicating as much as I possibly can to help them feel less anxious and less scared. But look, we need the three prongs, right, We need legislation, but we don't have the we don't have control. Right, we can still introduce legislation, but we need three Republicans to join us.
So we can try to do things legislatively to help this situation, but we also have to litigate. Individual members of Congress can't have standing to sue. So we are partnering with our outside partners, and yeah, we do need to agitate, which is why I've been out in front of the Treasury and the Consumer or Financial Protection Bureau
and the Agency of Education. And I think it's really important that my constituents see me out there raising their voices for them because they're on little back roads of Vermont. They're not here in DC, and so I understand the frustration and anger that I've heard from from some of the groups. They want us to be in the fight, and so I have, like I said, I've been trying to do everything to indicate to my constituents that that's
where we are. I haven't seen the Axios article that I certainly have heard the murmur ins on Capitol Hill. I know what can be hard sometimes is when people feel like we need three Republicans to join us, and yet our offices are getting flooded. But the Republicans aren't.
Do you think that's true, though? I mean, I'm sure the Republicans are also going to be flooded.
Yeah, I can't speak to that, right, I think it is a perception. I will tell you one thing, though, Molly, which is to give you the level of like what can sometimes creep us out when people say we're not fighting hard enough. I just heard this yesterday. Please a dear friend of mine, she's in a frontline district, and she was on the phone with a constituent last night who was really angry and yelling at her, and she said, it's not enough for members of Congress to try to
get into the Department of Education. You know, because I don't know if you saw that clip, a bunch of us were down there. This person literally said to her, you need to be breaking down the door and getting shot. That's the only thing that's going to grab the attention of the American people.
Yeah, that's not so good.
That's not good.
Right. So we got a channel. We got to channel that anxiety and that fear, that worry into action. And I think we do need to do a better job as Democrats telling people what are the actions that they can take while also educating, like what does it mean when you're not in charge of the House. You don't control the gabbles, you don't control the committee, right, all
of those things. I had a constituency to me the other day, Well, why can't you just bring a bill to the floor of the House and make it a bipartisan bill and get people to vote with you. I said, I don't. I can't do that. That's just like not possible in the minority. And so, you know, I want us to be making the case really strongly, really forcefully about why it is that we are standing with working people. We've got to do a better job there, and I'm trying to do my part every single day.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, Becca.
Thank you.
Always love talking with you.
Molly, No moment, Jesse Cannon, Somali Young Fast.
If you don't call the Golf of Mexico Golf of America, you're going to pay.
Yeah, this is really so stupid. It's hard to imagine something stupid are than this, but we have hit on it Donald Trump's Golf of America gate.
Again.
The idea here is that language. You know, they hate the mainstream media. They're furious with writers, and yet they're obsessed with language, So go figure.
I don't know.
This is one of the stupider things. He was mad that the AP would not put it put the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, and is to punish the associated pressure, he did not allow their journalists in to his press briefing. But again I'm reminded of Acosta in twenty seventeen. There's precedent for torturing journalists. It's like kind of his thing. 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.