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 Trump envoy Steve Wickoff watches Netflix documentaries to study world affairs. We have such a great show for you today. To the Contrary Newsletter author Charlie Sikes stops by to talk to us about Trump's Middle East trip and all its chaos. Then we'll talk to Congressman Greg Kazar about how Democrats can win back voters.
But first the news Sabali James Coombe, You and I are not two of those people on the Democrats side of things who think he's are homie. But now he's the victim of a Trump conspiracy theory, which makes me almost want to pour out a beer for him. But also I'm really having trouble feeling sorry for him.
James, call me. I don't feel sorry for him at all. This is another fake scandal. Well basically he saw an Instagram post on the beach. Maybe again. I want to point out that James Comy is writing trashy books and profiting off of the resistance like being a resistance hero. No single person has made more money off of fucking up the twenty sixteen election than James Comy. Okay, he
drops the letter which loses the election for Hillary Clinton. Okay, the letter that says we don't know private server might open investigation. That letter twenty days or fifteen days before the election, completely fucks up the election. Goes on to do nothing but get fired, feel disappointed, give long interviews, sell his story to CBS where it is made into a movie, write numerous best selling books that no one, not even him, have read. He should be locked up
just for that. Okay, So again, fake outrage. They're very mad because he said eighty six forty seven, and all of the right is saying he was making a threat of violence. There's a piece in the Washington Post which lists all the times Donald Trump has done the same thing. Whatever. The point here is that do not buy James Comy's books. Send James Comy to the Hague. You're welcome.
Yeah, And just to put a fire point on this, like I can remember working in bars in the nineties and we would eighty six people meaning throw them out, Like this is not a new term here, like I was saying this thirty years ago.
Look, this is a fake outrage thing. But there should be real outrage because this person is not a real writer. Buy books by real writers. Don't buy books by James Comy. And by the way, FBI, those guys were always very right leaning. It's possible he's threw the entire election to Trump. Well, that James call me is why we're all here. So let us not even for a minute just say anything nice about that guy. The best thing about him is that he's tall. You're welcome.
First they came for James Kobe and I set this one up because yeah, yeah, first.
They came for James Koby, and I was like, send.
Him to the Hague. Uh.
So Elon Musk's AI bought Grock very cursed, very very cursed. It's now telling everybody about white genocide and that everybody thinks they know the province of how this happens.
Yeah, I think I know the province of how this happened, all right. So Elon Musk has underwritten a large part of this presidency. Right, he gave Trump a gazillion dollars. He's the bank roller, he's you know, he was the one who was able to pass the cr by saying he would primary other Democrats, other Republicans or whatever fund primary challenges. My man is very obsessed with South Africa and protecting white people in South Africa because he grew
up in South Africa as a fancy white person. So he's trying to program GROC to do things like say there is white genocide in South Africa. There isn't white genocide South Africa. But again, what is important about this is not that it's about white genocide. It's like with the birthright citizenship. This is the Canarian the coal mine right. I mean, obviously birthright citizens will get into that later. I hope that's on the topics. Should we just go into birthright citizenship right now?
Yeah?
Okay. So the point is Grock is if you start messing with what is true and what is not true when you open the door to AI, I think you're gonna have a lot of problems, right, because some things are objectively true. And even if we live in this sort of post truth era where you have people you know, you have Trump saying that the guy was a gang member that had MS thirteen tattoos, even though they were
clearly photoshop. Even if you are in a post truth era, even then you feed AI post truth, you're going to get AI filled with lies. And since there is no fact check on the internet, because why would there be, we are really like on our way down the rabbit hole of like a post post post truth, where it's impossible to know what is real and what is fake.
Yeah, speaking of this very cursed.
Trial of birthright citizenship.
Yes, the discourse around it, you'll be shocked to hear, is not good.
They're mad at what amy Cony Barrett said during this birthright citizenship oral argument, which was not about birthright citizenship. It was actually about a president being able to overrule judicial decisions. So again you think it's about birthright citizenship, but it's really about who has more power than judiciary or the president. And Emy Barrett, I guess she was indifficiently maga.
She seemed to be to I roll one of the lawyer's arguments, and even just as Cavadol was like, dude, you gotta help me more if you want to overturn this, like he really seemed like come on, man. Yeah, So the discourse around this has been extremely cursed. As per usual, one Raphael ted Cruise has weight in You will remember him as someone who was not born in America, and as usual with him, it's do as he says, not as he's done.
Let's listen are the argument is here, that is the absolute heart of the argument, and I think birthright citizenship is terrible policy. It is right now current US law before the Trump executive order, that if an illegal alien is here and she gives birth to a child, that baby is instantaneously a US citizen. The problem is that's an incredible magnet for illegal immigration. You see people crossing the Southern border. You see pregnant women crossing the Southern
border explicitly to give birth in America. So there baby can be an American citizen. We also have this phenomenon called birth tourism.
Yeah, this is very stupid. First of all, again this is not about birthright citizenship. I mean there are two things going on here. One is ken Donald Trump edit the Constitution with executive orders. He cannot, So that is not how any of this is supposed to work, number one. And then number two is can he overrule judicial orders?
And he can't. So this is like one of these things where I think you get Alito and Thomas because they are basically Fox News hosts, so you'll have the two of them be like, yes, Orange Man, good retweet if truth. But everyone else who has a working cerebral cortex is going to be like no, no, no, you can't edit the constitution. So again, lion, Ted is going to birthright citizenship being a terrible policy, doesn't matter, right,
It's in the Constitution. I don't think the Second Amendment is great, but it's not how any of this works. So sorry, buddy, you don't get to do that. And also, by the way, just to point out, we are like in the middle of a population crisis. Nobody is coming here.
The southern border is pretty quiet. I mean it just this is like a made up crisis and a made up this and a made up that, and no one should be surprised because this is just they have one sort of thing that they're excited about and this is what they keep doing. So you know, I mean, I just all I can say is I'm very impressed with Ted Cruz's facial. Charlie Sykes is the author of To the Contrary and the book How the Right Lost Its Mind. Welcome Charlie Sykes, Welcome, Welcome.
Well, I just want to come along with this journey, Molly, I mean, what are we going to talk about this week? I feel like, you know, everything that could possibly be said has been said, but I'm willing to do it anyway.
Yes and yes, and it is an exhausting moment for American punditry.
Do you think so?
I think so. But you know, here's the thing. The one bright spot in my mind is Planegate.
Oh I can't get enough of that. I can't get an I actually did a podcast with David from and we walked through, you know what a total scam. The whole thing is how Donald Trump has basically been duped because the Guitaris had to off load this white Altin that's been sitting around since twenty twelve. They've been trying
to spell this thing. Nobody's gonna buy it. They couldn't sell the other plane, so they had to give it away to the President of Turkey, and people like five years ago were speculating, what are they gonna do with this thing? They're probably gonna have to find somebody else to give it to. Sure enough, who comes along, Donald Trump? You know you get I get a gaudy plane for free, which is not for free, obviously.
I'm telling you that is so Erdawan has the other one.
Yeah, that's right. He apparently got the gaudy plus one. So Trump's gonna have to, like, you know, find a way to make this you know, Vegas in the sky even more tasteless than Ertiwan's plane.
I'm sorry, but the fact that Erduwan got the better plane and that Trump is getting the less good version of the President of Turkey. It's not even like the President of China, where it's like, Okay, this is an economy that's like America, humongas whatever. But Turkey, I mean, it's a sad footnote and what is otherwise a preposterous, completely self created scandal.
Yeah, it's it's preposterous and it's incredibly brazen, particularly when people start to realize that the free plane will probably cost American taxpayers a billion dollars to retro fit to Air Force one, and then Donald Trump takes it with him when he leaves the presidency, which means we're going to need more air Force ones. We're going to have to pay not only the retro fit the fancy white Elephant air Force one, the Katari Air Force one. We're
going to have to have other Air Force one. This thing is going to be one of the biggest boondoggles white elephants in American history. And Donald Trump just owns it from Stem distern.
And again, like if you look back, So we're like one hundred and twenty five days into this second presidency of Donald J. Trump, it's been a sort of slow roll again of self created crisis, is right. We had trade war with China, which is still bubbling under the surface. We have the plane we have I think the I think the crisis that is right around the corner. Besides the China tariffs, we saw Walmart as planning to raise prices. Walmart is everywhere. If you live in America, you shop
at Walmart. It's something like some huge percentage of American shop at Walmart. So everyone in the world is going to feel this. American people hate inflation. They were biden because of eggs. Think about how mad they're going to be when they go to Walmart and everything is twenty percent thirty I mean the tariff is thirty percent right now.
Could be problematic, could.
Yes, But I think that what's coming down the pike is one big beautiful bill.
Well yeah, I mean there's some other crises coming, like maybe the measles epidemic and planes falling out of the air because the Secretary of Transportation is too dumb to know what to do about it. But yes, the big beautiful bill, which really, when you think about it, is you know, if you really wanted to put together a tax package and you wanted to come up with the worst possible way of doing it, They've nailed it. They
really have. With all the fiscal cliffs, all the favors, all the things that expire, the fact that it's going to blow up the deficit. And yet look, let's not engage in irrational exuberance. He's going to get the thing passed. All these all these stories about the hard liners are, you know, taking a stand. You know what, what Republican hardliners do, the same thing as republic Can moderates do. They always fucking cave in the end. Always he is going to get it passed.
I don't know what that looks like. And remember, it'll be a totally different bill when it comes out of the Senate. But I would like to talk about one Chip Roy. You will remember Chip Roy as being impossibly woke. Chip Roy said, and again, like out of the mouths of Chip Roy. I'm going to give you this one because I feel like this is an important bit. This is something he tweeted yesterday. Spending cuts that don't cut in for four years seems awfully specific.
Of course, it's very specific. It's very cynical. It's like they're basically trying to set it up for twenty twenty eight so that JD. Vans or whoever is running, can go to his buddies and say, you know, if I don't get elected, all these sweet deals, all these tax cuts just go away. Yeah, these socialist Democrats are going to take away all your goodies. So they've set it up. The problem is create all these fiscal cliffs, all of
this uncertainty. But these guys are looking No nobody's ever confused them with rocket scientists.
But again, nobody's ever confused them with rocket scientists. They are taking away stuff from the American people. And yet, and I say this, as you know, what's side of the aisle I'm on, Democrats are having a very tough time messaging this. How is this possible?
I can't believe that I'm going to be on the opposite side of this question, because the fact is that, And I agree with Karen Tummlety from the Washington Post who describes the way they both like a lot, Yeah, very much. You know, I've been around a long time, and she calls it a masterclass of resistance. The way the Democrats in fact are handling the Medicaid cuts. They keep putting up amendments, they keep getting Republicans on the
record on this issue. They've been pounding it. So this is one of those rare moments where I think that they're doing probably what they should be doing. And of course all of the is kind of the preseason because once they pass this bill, once they in fact do you know, slash Medicaid, then they own it. They have
to live with it, and we see the consequences. And one of the things we've seen is the fact that a lot of these policies may poll well until they become specific, until we put a human face on them, until we see all the downstream effects. And there will be downstream effects when you toss millions of people off of their healthcare. So well, I mean, I'll agree with you to this point that if the Democrats can't message all of this stuff, they really ought to find a
different line of work. They all ought to become Walmart greeters, starting with Chuck Schumber.
It's too expensive. I think that's a really good point. What you're saying though about Medicaid. Medicare these cuts what they will mean? And again, they don't pall well. Cutting them doesn't pall well. It polls well, but it doesn't. It's not popular. And then what is going to happen is you're going to see rural hospitals close and nursing homes. So Grandma comes to live with you because the nursing home closed. You have a car accident and you have
to drive three hours to a hospital. I mean, you're going to have story after story for that. Now here's the question. Donald Trump with the tariffs. Okay, so had these huge traffs with China. The TikTok the Wall Street Journal, there was a really good TikTok about this. Maybe was the Washington Post. I think it was a Wall Street Journal, right, really good TikTok of how they got him to back down, which was basically they were like, you're hurting your people.
Now it's the tariffs with China are still the highest they've been since World War two or some crazy I mean they're not They're humendously high. They don't shut off China, right, they just make China more expensive. And they're going to have huge inflationary effects because they will, there's no way, and I think those effects are coming down the pike. We haven't seen it yet, clearly because the markets are rallying,
so we haven't seen it. But we did see consumer confidence today way down big right, and consumer confidence like that in itself can get you into recession. So the question is, really, as we are walking through this, is there a world in which he's medicaid cuts. These are cuts to red states. A lot of Red states are going to feel the hospitals and nursing homes. So do these members vote for this anyway? And does Donald Trump sign it anyway knowing because remember he cares about his people,
So does he sign it anyway or does he? I mean, this will be a straight line between Trump your rural hospital closing.
Yeah, they will vote for and he will sign it, and then he will come out and say this is a big, beautiful bill and it's a huge win and everybody is going to be better off because Donald Trump doesn't care about the substance of a policy. He only cares about how he can market it, and he feels that he can sell any shits in which is Filet Mignon understand that the superpower. Also, I'm not sure this is directly in response to this, but sometimes I feel
like we're watching the wrong movie. We think that Donald Trump is doing one thing, when in fact he's doing another. So I start trying to write a piece about about, you know, Elon Musk and what a complete fraud Doge was. We're finding out now that you know, despite all the chainsaw, all the performative slashing and cutting and frankly, you know a lot of the damage that he's done, and it is in fact dangerous, but it didn't actually cut much
government spending. And I mentioned this to some smarter person than me, and he said, yeah, but that you know, why do you think that that's what Doge was really all about? Assume that Elon Musk is still a savvy guy. So while we're all focused on these cuts and these layoffs, what Elon Musk was doing was gutting all the regulatory agencies that might have held him accountable, the SEC, any of these other organizations. He's basically feathering his nests. And
the same thing with Donald Trump. You know, we think that Donald Trump is focused on the big beautiful bill. Look, donald Trump was in the Middle East last week, basically just coining money, you know, taking care of, as David Frum says, taking care of his retirement fund. So the mistake with Donald Trump is ever to think that he's serious about public policy. Now, what you're saying is that he might think that the optics were so terrible that
he wouldn't sign. He's definitely going to sign that big beautiful bill because he has to. Failure is not an option for him. But right now I think that what Donald Trump is doing is, you know, Donald Trump is rigging the government and the world economy for the benefit of Donald Trump. He is not lying awaken night worrying about grandma in a rural hospital. He give a shit about that. So the movie here is not Donald Trump's economic plans. It's Donald Trump really doing his business the
way he thinks it should be done. For Trump, it's just a matter of being able to declare a win. So say, let's take this China thing that we're talking about. Thirty percent tariffs are stunningly high. The only reason the markets are going, oh my god, what a relief is because they're not high compared to one hundred and forty five percent, right.
Which is really no more in China.
So Donald Trump lit this, you know, the entire forest on fire, came in, put out a portion of it. The woods are still on fire. But people are going, well, okay, that's not so bad. But it is going to be inflationary. It is going to happen effect. But Donald Trump believes that all he has to do is say CI won. He loses to China, right, he blinks. But as long as he can declare to win, he's going to be happy and just take that, you know, one after another.
It doesn't matter what actually happens in the real world. Donald Trump believes that he can sell it.
So is that post truth?
Yeah, oh very much. It's post truth. It's post shame, it's post accountability, it's post rule of law, it's post ethics, it's post every one of those things.
So the bill passes, they start kicking people off, you know, rural hospitals. This kind of stuff happens. We cruise into the mid term with Democrats poise to win. What happens. I mean, I mean, do you think that's just how it goes, or do you think that.
There is Yeah, probably, Yeah.
Let's talk about Elon Musk and Doge. So clearly Doge has done something because now we're starting to have really bad problems with our faa.
Oh my god, it's terrifying.
But again, like this is the thing about Doge, which I think is so brilliant, is that no one really knows what the fuck they did in there right.
Right, except that it didn't actually shrink the size of government or deficit or any of those things. No, there are really still potentials for terrible things. I mean, going to the summer that if the national parks are a disaster, that has consequences, If planes start falling out of the sky, that has consequences, And there are all sorts of other things that we don't fully understand because he didn't care
about them. So yeah, that's all a possibility. But Elon Musk, I think has generally gotten what he wanted out of all of this. He's continuing to I mean, the fact that they just this may seem so small, but what's going on at the Library of Congress is so bizarre. They fired the Librarian of Congress and then the head of the Copyright Office.
Why because she was black?
Well yes, well okay, but the Copyright Office firing takes place like the week after they issue this detailed report that pushes back on Elon Musk's position on AI. So, I mean, he has his own agenda and he's making sure that he's taken out everybody is doing it. So, but by the way, can we talk about this as the weirdest story of the day. I mean, there are so many weird stories of the day.
Yes, please, I want a weird story. Let's go.
When I first heard this, I thought, okay, this is a misunderstanding. It's a misreport. It's a parody of some guy. Christy Nome actually wants to have a Hunger Games type TV show where migrants compete on the air for citizenship. And it's one of those where you have to read it a couple of times and go, Okay, this cannot be true, right, Can Homeland Security Barbie actually have come up with something like this? At this point, nothing is
beyond parody. If she was proposing a TV show where people competed with who can shoot the puppy, you know, in the face of the first I no longer would be genuinely shocked by it. But this is a real story. So these people, honestly, for all the problems they've been having, there's no sense whatsoever that they're back on their heel or that they think that they've gone too far, or that perhaps they ought to rain things. And you know, people like, why.
Do you think that is? I mean, clearly, Christy nom wants to be famous and that's it, right, don't stop. She doesn't care why she's famous, just wants me famous, wants to make money. I mean obviously that you don't have a fifty four page deck for a reality show or a thirty seven page deck for reality show. Hell, if you're not pretty convincing you want to So she wants me famous. But what's the end goal? I mean, I think a lot of these people just want to make money and be famous, right.
Yeah, right, and then and be powerful and be influential. Now, Stephen Miller does have an end goal, which is which is deeply ugly. I just have the sense that the hubris in this administration is getting more and more intense. Now that's the bad news is that they are you
know at ramming speed. The good news is the story of Hubris seldom ends well when you fly too close to the sum When Stephen Miller comes rolling out last weekend and say we're thinking of yeah exactly, it's like he thinks and all these stories now saying he's the President's ID, that nobody else has as much cloud as he does. I don't know how Donald Trump, you know, reacts to that that.
He's running the DOJ. Did you see that story?
Yes?
And you know, isn't that isn't that remarkable? But not a total shock that the Fox News hosts chosen by Trump are merely figureheads, right, They're the people there's the talking head you put on TV. They don't actually like do shit? So who does shit? I mean some of these evil humunculuses, like Stephen Miller.
But it is amazing to me that there was some report in the reporting of the James Comy eighty six forty seven, that whole crisis that they got cash Fatel, because like cash Fattel has been curiously absent from the discourse.
Yes, but not the discothechts, So I'm certainly not doing that. Well, Okay, what's hilarious about this whole you know, eighty six forty seven thing is now people are coming up with all sorts of times when Maga folks were saying, you know, eighty six forty six, or they were actually marketing merch, you know, with eighty six, because as many people know, eighty six does not necessarily mean kill them. It means, you know, to get rid of them, or means take
it off the menu or whatever. So some of the delicious stuff on social media will be actually putting tweets side by side of a Maga folk, somebody in Maga saying, you know, we should eighty six Biden, and then right next to it, oh my god, Jim Comy is calling for the assassination of Donald Trump for saying the exact same. I mean, you know, it's just it's all performative bullshit at this point.
Charlie Sikes, thank you for joining us.
Thank you. I cannot wait to read your book, Molly, I cannot wait to read your book.
Congressman Greg Kazar represents Texas's thirty fifth congressional district. Welcome to Fast Politics, Representative Kazar, thanks so much for having me a new Ish member of Congress.
That's right here, a few months into my second term.
You have already sort of emerged as a star. You're the head of the Progressive Caucus, and you have been going around with AOC and Bernie, but also with other people. So I want you to talk to me about how you've found it since you've been in Congress, and how you've kind of found your voice.
Well, what's happening in the world and what's happening in the country is crazy. It's just awful if you really take in what the Trump administration is doing to our government and to people in our country any given day. But when you ask me how I've found Congress, you know, I go into these committee meetings and people aren't really debating policy or how to make the country better. It's not like I'm having a reasoned debate with my Republican colleagues.
They're just they're ramming through healthcare cuts. They're just there ramming through billionaire tax cuts, and then they say whatever words it is they have to say around it. And so I've recognized how important it is for us to go out there and speak to the country and organize the country and mobilize people if we want to stop what's happening in Congress. The horrible thing's happening in Congress.
And so you know, I can go to a committee meeting and argue with chairwomen of my subcommittee, Marjorie Taylor Green, till I'm blue in the face.
Is that doj Is that this committee we're talking about?
Yeah?
But you know when the report came out whatever that was a week and a half ago, that the Republican plan was going to kick nearly ten million people off of their healthcare and just one with just one vote from the Republicans. Chairwoman of the Committee on DOGE, Marjorie Taylor Green called a hearing on trans fencing, not like the fences around a building, but like the sport with the swords. And while I'm sure fencing is a great sport, I've never met a fencer. You know, there's less than
one thousands collegiate fencers in America. There's less than ten trans collegiate athletes in all of American college sports. And so while I'm in Congress, that's what Marjorie Taylor Green wants to have hearings about. That's what she wants headlines about. And if we want to beat that, it's so important to go out into public and go and do rallies with AOC and Bernie, but also I'm on Fox News and on Univision with the exact same message, which is, we want to make your life better. We want to
not just protect healthcare but expand it. And we could do that if we're willing to stand up to the billionaires that are stealing your taxpayer dollars and screwing you
over every single day here in the government. And that kind of message I think should be at the heart of a new progressive message of the Democratic Party's new message to people to say, look, this is crazy, and we can unite more people if against this, if we go and get folks stirred up, because the vast majority of Republican voters and Trump voters don't believe that we should be kicking millions of people off their healthcare all to give some Republican billionaire donors a bigger tax cut.
Yeah, so I'm like very agitated. My new hobby horse come with me is Democrats who speak like thep you know, like from the show Weep Right. They speak in this sort of like you gotta bring the amer and the CA and then you have America right where they say stuff that doesn't mean anything, and you think, I'm so bored that I will do anything to get off of this interview. You don't talk like that. Do you see
that people actually respond to it? And can you talk to other Democrats and make them talk normally.
I'm new to Congress, and so it means that there are things that I don't know right because I'm new here. But it also means that when I see something weird that everybody treats as normal, I'm like, that's really weird. And I'm in some of these rooms and have been here, you know, as a newer member where we get sat down dozens and dozens of members of Congress on the Democratic side, and we're showing a slideshow and it says
things like say these specific words defend social security. Just say it, and ninety percent of voters agree, But nobody asks themselves, like you just said, Molly, what if nobody hears you? What if you're totally tuned out? What if that tree falls in the forest and nobody cares? Who are so focused on saying the magic words instead of actually connecting with people and saying, isn't it freaking nuts?
That they're talking about game years off of Social Security, taking your mom, your grandmother off of Social Security while they get a bigger tax gut And isn't it crazy. I didn't even know this fully until I was in Congress that if you're Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, you don't pay into Social Security every paycheck they pay in like three days and then they're done because there's like
a special carve out for gajillionaires on Social Security. What like, we could pull every senior in the country out of poverty. You could have every young person that has to support some of their just tax the res if you just literally, if we just tax Jeff Bezos, Yeah, you could make it so that tons more folks could just support themselves and pay their own ment or mortgage instead of having to support themselves and their parents who work their entire lives.
And just connecting with people a little more authentically in that way has big results. But I think it also requires that we're willing to call out a villain so that people are interested in our story instead of sounding like we're just policy wonks and like Harvard moot court, because like, yeah, that turns people off.
I have a friend who's a member of Congress who I love, and I saw this person. I'm not going to say what gender they are because I don't want to give it away. I saw this person the other day and I said, how you doing? And this person was like, I am not fucking getting what I deserve in leadership world because the older people are keeping me out of it. Are you seeing that? And why is that happening?
Well, you know, there's this long established seniority system in Congress, and it exists for a variety of reasons, and I think that it's kind of served out. It's most of its usefulness where people just like anybody else, and folks have been like when I came in, the rule was once I've been here twenty years, then I get a certain amount of influence. And now I've been here eighteen years and you're changing the rules on me last minute. And the answer is kind of that's what's happening, and
it's going to be better for everybody. And there are some folks that have been here twenty and thirty years that are much older than me, that are actually bought on and have more energy than I do.
On Nancy Pelosi, she could run circles around me, you know.
So, Look, it isn't that we should pick it by age one way or the other. I just think, as we've seen on some committees, like the Oversight Committee that I'm on, that there is a lot of new talent, and that we have chosen our leaders oftentimes by who makes the best pitch. So Jamie Raskin, who led Oversight
and now leads Judiciary, an incredible leader. He was not the most senior person on either of those committees, and we picked him, and I think everybody benefits, and so I look, if the most senior person is the best person, then I think we go all in. I'm of the mindset that we should bring people in, interview them, and vote for the best person. And I think the Democratic Caucus is starting to get there. We're not fully there, and I respect why folks feel like it's not fair
to change the roles at the last minute. But my main focus is on Look, we're on the verge of nearly fourteen million people losing their healthcare for a billionaire tech cut, Like, let's fight that with everything we got.
So I'm hoping you could tell me where you guys are with Oversight so.
I'm on the Oversight Committee. So for folks listening in, this is supposed to be the committee that investigates when big corporations or the administration are doing corrupt things. Right, like if you just said, the last few days, Trump was given a four hundred million dollar jet, He's being offered a four hundred million dollar jet for free from the Katari government, which is like illegal in so many different ways, and it violates the Constitution in so many
different ways. This is supposed to be the committee that's supposed to investigate things like that, but it's currently led by Republicans whose job it is to apologize and cover up for things like that. So Jamie Raskin used to lead us on that committee. Jerry Connelly was elected after mister Raskin was he is suffering from a re emergency
of cancer and our thoughts are so deeply with him. Look, everybody listen, They themselves or something of their close family have dealt with the answer that you think goes away and then comes back. It's just these are real people we work with, and so truly like this is a practices to speak. We are with Jerry on this. At some point soon, he said, he will step back and then there will be an election. And they've been all sorts of folks that have thrown their names out there.
Three members of my Progressive Caucus, mister Imfume, who has Elijah Cummings Oldti he used to run the committee, Jasmine Crockett from my state of Texas. Robert Garcia, who's been an incredible leader on this. You've probably see them all over the news ripping the administration apart from Long Beach, California. And then mister Lynch, who's not a Progressive Caucus member but you know also currently is like leading the committee
in the interim. So my way of thinking about this, because I kind of lead this team of progresses right over ninety members of Congress or a part of my caucus, is instead of us all going our own separate ways and picking who we like, I think that everybody that's running once mister Connolly steps back and there's an actual race, come in present to ninety members of Congress, and then we should vote as progressives to get behind somebody whoever the best person is that we think can push back
against these Trump musk abuses. And this is going to be really important because for folks listening at home. If Democrats regain the majority, even if we don't have the White House, we get subpoena power, and in the Oversight Committee, that means we could bring folks like Elon Muskin under oath to talk about all the stuff they did and to root out, in my view, probably many things that were against the law, because I've been talking about firing
you On Musk. But I think for folks that we find out violate criminal laws, commit real acts of corruption, like, the consequences for that are worse. And I think the only way that we prevent people from unaccountability, stealing from the taxpayers to benefit from themselves is if those folks have a feeling that maybe in a year and a half Democrats could have the majority and you can actually
get held accountable for it. Because right now they are so emboldened they arrested a mayor in Newark and threatened to arrest members of Congress for following the law and going and checking in on an ice facility just this weekend. They are so emboldened they think that they'll never get held accountable, and the Oversight Committee is the place to do that. And so part of my job. It's probably weird for folks at home downe to fully, you know,
hear how all the insides of this work. But my job as Progressive Caucus chair is to kind of corral my team of ninety something progressives and be like, who's the best who's our best pick that we can align behind for this very important position, which will be investigating the Trump administration, dealing with Marjorie Tayler Green and folks like that for now, but eventually, if the demost when the House, it can actually go investigate all the stuff
that's happened. And if they know we're going to investigate it hard, that actually might be a way of preventing some of the horrible things that they're trying to do right now.
I think the idea of voting as a block too is much better than as someone who lives in New York, where we are under the mayoral curse. What we have found is that progressives in New York tend not to put it together as a group, and just everybody runs against each other and then everyone loses.
We have to get organized, and I was a labor organizer before I was an elected official, and so it makes my job a little different. Here in Congress. I can say what it is that I think, and that's important, but I you know, I can have a bigger impact as of one of four hundred and thirty five members of Congress if I can get eighty or ninety people together. And that's how I think we pushed our agenda beyond
just defending against stuff. We get ninety one hundred and one hundred and fifty members of Congress to say, yeah, we're going to defend Medicaid and Medicare from these Republican attacks, but also put us in office and we'll expand it. We'll pull every senior in this country out of poverty by expanding social security. Maybe we I'm for a Medicare for all system, But man, if we could even just get the age of Medicare down fifty five or sixty years old, we can help so many seniors get the
healthcare that they need. Maybe we can pass universal childcare so that your childcare expenses are never more than seven
percent of your budget. Those are the sorts of things that if we actually really got done, then I think people could believe in us again, not just as the anti Trump people, but as the people who really did something for me because in places like Texas, I'll tell you, we are at the bottom of the list of voter turnout, and a lot of the folks that don't try out to vote, they're like, it doesn't really make that much
a difference. I know it makes a difference, but I want to show them the huge positive difference we can make. And that's part of what I'm trying to rally members of Congress around, is let's defend against the bad stuff, but also put out a vision for how we can make people's lives better.
Who are you seeing that you where you feel that they're good? In Congress and in the Senate where for example, here's a question that I often am asked, which.
Is like, who are the leader of the Democrats right now, right all the time? Yeah, And I know people feel that way.
It doesn't have to be the leader, but more just people where you're like, oh, this is impressed by what this person is doing.
Oh, these people are good right now. I understand how a lot of folks at home are feeling where they're like, who is the person driving this for us? My first election was Obama's first election. We had that, you know, in President Obama, both as a candidate and as president.
And right now we're in a place where Republicans have Speaker of the House, the Republicans have majority leader, they have Trump and the White House, and so there's like this competition for who the biggest voices should be, and that can be uncomfortable, and folks are like, well, who's good, who's emerging? But right now is the time for that to happen, for everybody to go out there and do their thing. Like I feel like AOC is like our
number one draft pick. As young Democrats have been amazing this year, going across the country, put her voice out there. You know, that's amazing and alongside burning it. But then there's also folks that have some of these tough Trump to Biden districts that are kind of close, and folks like Chris Deluzio has been amazing. You know, he's a progressive. But somebody who can talk to voters that maybe weren't ready to vote for Joe Biden, We're ready to vote
for him. And so there's you know, there's these emerging voices I think that are rallying the country. But I'd say to the folks what I say to people all the time is right now. I think the leaders of the party right now are like the folks flooding these town halls, the people organizing these hands off marches, because I want the people to really lead in this moment, because what I've seen in DC is, look, the way that should work is people lead and the politicians follow.
When folks come and ask me like, hey, what should I do? I give them some ideas. But it's even better. Like when I was a labor organizer, we weren't asking members of Congress for permission or big companies for permission. Like we were out there pushing. And I think if people go out there and push, it's what gives our democratic leaders, like a little bit of stepping their step. Courage inspires courage. And so look, I encourage people to call to march, to call all of our offices.
All right, tell me who You're not telling me what I want? Give me who? Well, yeah, I mean if you want a list of my faves, yes, go who win leadership? Do you feel like is really doing the work in the House or the Senate?
Okay, I know you're in New York and that this gets strictly, but I frankly was very very supportive and am very supportive of Leader Jeffrey saying we need to vote know the Trump budget. You know, I just thought that that was a powerful move. He aligned the Democratic House members and we did a hard thing now say look,
we're not going to vote for your budget. And I do think it was a devastating move by Leader Schumer to not just vote for the but Trump budget, but in many ways help get it across the finish line. And I just think those are two different styles of leadership, and in my view, in this moment, we need that style of leadership that we saw from Leader Jefferies where he said we're going to take a bold stand on
somewhere where it really makes a difference. And I think that we're suffering from those repercussions of Leader Schumer's decision today. So if if you want me to give you a little bit of it, of the of the t you know, like that's that to me, that's the real difference right now.
But here's a question for you that because I don't disagree, and I think most people agree with you, But the question is, wasn't it by the time that bill got out of the House like, nobody thought Donald Trump would whip the votes on that, right, Nobody saw it coming that Donald Trump and Elon Musk would literally call people and be like, if you don't vote for it, we're got in primary. There was no precedent for that or whatever happened that was like that, but clearly something to
that effect happened. But once it got out of the house, and again I'm not defending anyone, I'm more just once it got out of the house, it was the Democrats were going to own the shutdown.
That's the important question. So look real quick on precedents and unprecedented Trump Musk stuff. These guys do crazy stuff crazy. We have to understand that everybody you're going to do is unprecedented. There is everybody listening is like, oh, I knew they were going to do bad stuff, but I didn't know this. That's how we should be handling into the house. You know, like he's going to pull every trick in the book. So we just we can't rely
on that. In my view, right, that's how we got Speaker Johnson reelected even though people opposed him, because he went in and you know, made the phone calls. So look, here's here's my disagreement with Leaderschuomer is that if we go in assuming that we're going to get blamed for fighting, then the only path is to play dead, you know.
And I think that we need to pick tough fights, ones where we're at risk of losing, where we could get blamed for their not being a budget, but where we could actually go out there and explain to people why we aren't going to be a cheap date and help them and the Social Security Administration as we know it, and the FAA and safe flights as we know it and inspection of your food as we know it. I mean,
give me a break. And I believe that we need the kinds of fighters and communicators who say I'm willing to take a risk and taking a risk involved maybe we get blamed, but maybe we don't if we go out there and work it. But to your point, Yeah, if we have a bunch of folks that aren't willing to go communicate all over the country, then we might lose the fight and it's not worth picking it. But I think we need folks that are willing to pick the fight. And if you show up in poker and
everybody knows you're going to fold. We're never going to win, so we have to be willing for people to know, yeah, that we're willing to take a risk.
Yeah, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. That was great.
Thank you.
It's really nice to meet you.
No, Jesse Cannon boy, I think you and I are the biggest reality TV show watchers. But I know one show I would not fucking watch, which is the most dystopian bullshit I've ever heard, which is Christy Nomes's little Hunger Games for Immigrants show.
Look, the Wall Street Journal is reporting DHS is considering a reality show where immigrants compete for a citizenship. This is unbelievably insane. I think we should all be pretty I mean, even for this administration. That is wow. I mean I am rarely speechless, but Hunger Games for Immigrants
may have done it. Wow. And there's a thirty six page slide deck, which you do when you're trying to sell a show, and it envisions the show is beginning with contestants sailing to All Ellis Island, where they are greeted by the show's host, a famously naturalized citizen, maybe someone like Sophia Vergus Ryan Reynolds by the way.
None of these people are doing this.
No, no one is doing this. And yeah, I am almost without words, but I can find some. What the fuck? Man, what the fuck?
How much do you want to bet that it's like studio ghibli pictures of like an immigrant outrunning another immigrant because it's this white house.
There are no words, There are no words. Words fail may words do in fact fail me. 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.