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 Matt Gates and Elise Stefanik are introducing legislation stating that Donald Trump did not engage in insurrection. This season of stupid American government dies is even more depressing than the last.
We have such a great show for you today.
Mike Izikoff and Daniel Kledeman join us to talk about their new book, Find Me the Votes, A hard charging Georgia Prosecutor, a rogue President, and.
The plot to steal an American election.
Then we'll talk to Heated editor Emily Atkin about the misinformation surrounding Biden's latest move to protect the environment and slow climate change. But first we have the bulwarks Charlie Sykes. Welcome back to Fast Politics, Charlie.
Sykes, who had nothing's going on.
My favorite thing about this border bill insanity is that there's this bill, It's in the Senate. Republicans of the House don't want the Senate to vote on it even and instead they have a standalone Israel package which pro Israel. People don't want them to take.
A vote on.
Yeah. No, I mean this is about as screwed up as you can get. But also there's a certain amount of clarity, isn't there, you know? I mean you Republican Zoo have been running around saying that the border was an existential crisis. Your children were dying, they were handing out fentanyl like candy, and perhaps we had to do something about it right now. We could not pass that Ukraine bill right because the American border situation was so urgent.
And so basically we wake up and they get everything they want with the border bill and they go, yeah, no, just kidding, really not serious about it. We would so much rather have it as an issue than as is. So I mean, this is this the difference between the you know, performative bullshit that has now substituted for actual governance.
I mean, people used to think that if there was a problem that we would have, you know, Congress would deal with it, and if there was a possibility that you could come up with a bipartisan compromise to change the law that gave you eighty eighty five percent of what you wanted, you'd take it. But those are the before times.
Now, Yeah, pro is a group's want Speaker Johnson to pull the bill, but the leadership has not been receptive to that. I mean, it is it's performative bullshit. That's a really good point. Talk to me about the action in the Senate, because that is Langford is not some centrist libtard cock.
I had a Rick Wolson moment there.
Sorry, No, you're right, you could have gone on even longer. There. No. And I'm fascinated by this because, you know, and then Langford has become the go to guy saying to his fellow conservatives, guys, this is a good bill. You know, get off Facebook. You're being lied to a out to this bill. And so when you know Langford says this is a good bill, it's a very different thing than somebody on you know you or me on MSNBC saying it,
or you know, a democrat in the Senate. He's saying, look, we get almost everything that we want in this bill. And you can just sense his frustration as he's looking around him. And of course, because he's telling the truth about this bill, he has now become Donald Trump's number one enemy. I mean, if you noticed that, this is like it's become kind of an old pattern now by now a familiar pattern. You have Donald Trump running the
United States Senate. I can't believe I'm about to say this running the United States Senate from the Dan Bongino Show, you know, because of course this is the future we deserve. So he goes on Dan Bongino Show and says, yeah, I never endorsed that guy. He lied he did, But you know this is going to cost him his job because he actually tried to solve a problem that Donald Trump has been whining about four years and was never able to actually solve himself.
And the genesis of this was Republican said we will not fund Ukraine the borders of Ukraine until you solve our border.
Yeah, which is a great talking point, right, Except what they weren't counting on was the Biden administration saying, okay, let's do it.
We want the.
Ukraine aid and we're willing to give you a lot of what you want. You say that you don't want catch and release, fine, you want more border agents, Fine, let's do all these things. You want more border fence
will give you that. You know, it's interesting you get a sense of what a big win this was for conservatives if they were willing to take it, which of course they're not by the fact that Border Patrol Union, which is about as trumpy a union as exists, has endorsed this bill said yeah, this is pretty good, please pass it now. By the way, who was it They
have to look this up much. I think it was classic quote from I think was Joni Ernst of Iowa who said, you know, we should have given Senator Langford and the other negotiators the benefit of the doubt that they would come up with something good. Unfortunately, all this stuff got out there on social media. But it's out there, and now it's affective public opinion, and we have to take that into consideration, which is like, do you listen to yourself.
It didn't come out there.
It was an organized campaign by Donald Trump and his people, right, I mean, Don Junior is not acting on his own knowledge of the nineteen page bill.
Oh, I think that's a safe bet. I think that's actually a safe bet.
You know.
And again, what it comes down to is that it has nothing to do with the policy. It has nothing to do with actually addressing it. It is just simply this moment where compromise is bad. Anything that might make Joe Biden look good is bad. Anything that helps Donald Trump demagogue this issue more is good. It's just the cynicism is so naked, and I suppose we shouldn't be surprised about it, but it's like, guys, this is your
own freaking bill. This was the one that you said posed a real, existential, imminent threat to American security, and now you're going, yeah, not really go on it.
It is interesting to me, Like, the question is, is the Biden administration playing three dimensional chess? Did they plan this out knowing that it could never pass?
Or do you think right?
I mean, because had it passed, which it looks like it absolutely will not, it would have really infuriated a lot of progressives. I mean, Representative Jayapaul already said that she had a lot of problems with the bell. I mean, you think this was sort of Biden world playing three dimensional chess or now?
It's a really interesting question, though, isn't it. That is a very interesting question because the way it's played out, you know, had they set out to do it, it would be a pretty effective play because now they can spend the rest of the year saying, look at which we had in hand, and this do nothing Congress. And I keep coming back to my favorite campaign, of course, nineteen forty eight. You know, Harry Truman running, he needs
to do nothing Congress. He's got the perfect talking point. However, I don't think they were playing. You know, sometimes this stuff happens. Joe Biden's DNA is to negotiate deals. That's his strength and his weakness. He wants to put together, cobble together this bipartisan deal. And I think that as late as last week there was reason to think that maybe, just possibly this time, there might be a deal and that they might possibly have the backbone to pass it.
And I think that they played that string out as long as they possibly could. Now we're left with the everybody's got their talking point.
Let's talk about that, because the House is going to impeach Alejandro Mayorchis again. I want to quote Jonathan Turley, Right, Jonathan Turtley, it says that you can't technically impeach people. That impeachment is supposed to be about high crimes and misdemeanors and not people not doing what you want them to.
Right.
But this Republican Congress does not see a problem with that. They don't have the votes yet, but they think that all have the vote to impeach the secretary after rejecting voting on the bill.
Well, see, I think this is another one of those just you know, just freeze frame this moment. What do the Republicans want? Do they want to solve the problem or they want to have a bogus sham show trial, Chrick question, because you know exactly what they want now. They're not going to get the bogus sham show trial anyway, because it's not going to take place in the Senate. They're basically engaging in sort of this form of you know,
political base masturbation, and everybody feels good about themselves. But again, they're doing it booke ended with the fact that they had an opportunity to actually make substantive changes in the law and refuse to do it. So it's like, again here, on the one hand, is your performative politics versus the actual business of governing. And this is not breaking news, Molly, because you know, the party has been moving away from
serious governing for a long time now. But this is one of those little freeze frame moments of like what was going on twenty twenty four when they had a chance to actually do something about a crisis that at least one of the major political parties said was just the biggest thing happening in the Northern hemisphere.
Yeah, it's so hypocritical, but I do think there are a lot of Trump supporters who believe this sort of earth to theories of trump Ism.
Right, Well, I mean, how does it work. I mean, this is part of the cynicism. I mean, the cynicism is that, you know, the worst things are, the more likely voters are to blame Joe Biden. So let's keep things as bad as they are if we can, in fact, pour more kerosene on the fire that we hope that the voters will blame the person in the White House. That's deeply cynical. It's deeply reckless and irresponsible, but it's
not necessarily wrong. Generally, you try to put more of a fig leaf on it than what you're seeing right now in Washington.
Yeah.
Another bit of wild news is that the DC Circuit has decided, thank you, is that Trump is not a king. But Trump is hoping that the Supreme Court will decide that he is.
Right.
I wish he either had popcorn or I'd want a warm Bath just to talk about this, because this is an amazing do yourself a favor. I'm looking at all the listeners. Go download and print out. You can get more ink and paper from your printer. This whole opinion by the unanimous panel of the DC Circuit explaining that no, Donald Trump, you are not the king, you are not above the law. No officer of the United States is above the law, and just demolishing all of his arguments.
This is one of those moments where you do see the institutions behaving the way they were intended to behave. He can do two things, you know this. He can appeal this get to an on bank ruling of the DC Circuit Court all a dozen or more judges, I don't know how many judges there are. They don't have to do that. He will definitely appeal to the Supreme Court. But this is the case that he's not going to win. You and I have, I think, talked about this on television.
I think the US Supreme Court should disqualify him on the Fourteenth Amendment grounds, but I don't think they will. I don't think there's any chance they're going to. But they may split the baby here say we're not getting you off the ballot, but we're also stripping you of any pretense of immunity. And quite frankly, I think that's on balance a win. That's good.
Yeah.
The thing about Trump is that the longer he kicks the can, right, the more he wins.
Yes, it's all about delay, right, Yeah, yeah, he gives himself an advantage. But we don't know how the movie ends. I mean, you have a couple of dynamics here. Everybody understands the need of a time. Having said that, what took the DC Circuit Court so long? I mean, I think but it was like scrilling you people. But you have a judge, Chuckkin, they're in DC, who is going to move as quickly as she can. And you're exactly right.
Donald Trump's entire strategy at this point is to play this out to delay any sort of a conviction before the election, because and again, don't base you know, we got to have a certain amount of skepticism about poles, right, But there does seem to be a consistent line in the polls that when you ask people would you support Donald Trump if he was a convicted felon, people are not so hot for that, and he knows that that's the big problem. It's one thing to run as the
martyr victim. You know, they're coming after me, candidates, something else to be an actual convicted felon. And so Donald Trump's going to do the you know, the delay, delayed, delay, but that this has been a strategy for what twenty thirty years now, You've been watching him. He does this on all litigation.
You know, it's worked for him thus far.
It has worked for him, I mean, And the fact that we are now in February of twenty twenty four and there have been no trials about his criminal behavior, with the exception of the Egene Carol case, which I believe you have some familiarity with, is an indication of some success. I don't know if you and I have talked about this. I continue to be baffled by the way he went out of his way to call attention to case where he's been found to have raped and
then defamed a woman. You know, maybe the reptilian instinct has some limitations.
Just saying I think Trump thought that if he just made everything candidate Trump, that his cases.
Would go away.
But it strikes me that Candidate Trump and defendant Trump.
They do not have the same goals.
No, they definitely do not have the same goals. I mean, obviously, his performance in the courtroom has not been designed to impress the judge or to impress the juries, and he's paying a price for it. So he's assuming that he's
playing to a much friendlier court of public opinion. But you know, coming back to that Egene Carroll case, I don't think I can overstate how many voters in this country just didn't know anything about that case before Donald Trump decided to hang this gigantic bable on it by showing up every day. I mean, you and I follow it. You know the characters. I mean, there are tens of millions of Americans that have just learned relatively recently about this case. Now there's a lot of spin out there
of denial. You know, one thing, A loan doesn't move the needle. But it's now in play in a way that it wasn't before Donald Trump put it in play.
And we're still waiting for this federal fraud judgment.
Oh yeah, judging Gorn. You mean, yeah, well, you know the interesting thing about that judgment is, you know how it's going to turn out this is another one of the cases. You know how it's going to turn out. The question is how big is it going to be? And my guess is it's going to be huge. And that thing is getting worse for him because we were expecting to get that ruling last week. Judge put it off. I think the intelligence speculation is that maybe they're looking
at possible perjury charges involving that. So nothing about that gets better for him. And plus that's about something he really genuinely cares about, his money, right.
Yeah, and his family business, right which I feel like it's the legacy of trump Ism and Trump himself.
Yeah, I mean, it shatters the myth. I mean, you know, you know, it's the Golden Tower does built on lies and bullshit that convince people. And by the way, you know, the fun NBC have a lot to answer for for the whole Apprentice thing and putting him out there because a lot of people thought, hey, he's a successful businessman when he wasn't.
Right, he has become way more powerful than the Republican Party, right, and you're seeing that, right, Like, we don't know if he's going to fire Ron Romney McDaniel. There's some evidence our chief of staff just resigned that maybe that happened. If he loses, does the Republican Party get to now will they be able to reconstitute themselves or do they lose those people forever? I mean, is trump Ism just Trump? Or is trumpsm this anti democratic movement?
We should devote an entire podcast to this question.
Now.
Trump Ism will be with us for a very very long time. You've lost a lot of people, but also you've brought a lot of people into politics in the last decade now who think this is normal. And there's this massive infrastructure, financial infrastructure, but also a media ecosystem that rewards trumpy behavior. So I don't see this going anytime soon. I mean, just look at what happens to any decent Republican that stands up and says this is wrong.
Look at them all, you know, whether you're talking about Liz Cheney or Adam Kinsinger or I don't know how you feel about him, but I mean, Chris Christy did it. You know, Look what's happening to James Langford even as we speak, they are they become non persons immediately. And look who are the rock stars of this party And a lot of those people are going to be around for I'm sorry to say this, twenty thirty forty years in Republican politics, so this is not something that's going away.
Yeah, yeah, thank you so much, Charlie.
Well, thank you. It's always a pleasure to come back on your podcast anytime.
Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klydeman are the authors of Find Me the Votes. A hard charging Georgia prosecutor or a Rogue President and the Plot to Steal an American Election. Welcome Too Fast Politics. Daniel Hi, and mister Mike Iisikov.
Hi there, Mollie.
So have you done a bunch of books together or is this your first book together.
No, this is our first book together. But we have worked together on and off, mostly on since nineteen ninety six. So we were investigative reporters together at Newsweek, and then we worked.
Together at Yahoo for about almost ten years.
So the book is called Find Me the Votes. You really hit the timing on this in a pretty interesting way. Tell me your original plan for this book, how you sort of started working on it.
Basically, Look, the first germs of the idea came in twenty twenty one, when it looked like Fonnie Willis was the only prosecutor who was going to go after Donald Trump for his efforts to steal the twenty twenty presidential election.
If you remember, shortly after the phone call January second of twenty twenty one, in which Trump tells Raffinsburger to find eleven seven hundred and eighty votes, just one more than is needed to flip Georgia's electoral votes, Fannie Willis indicated she would have to investigate because rad Rathlisberger was in Bolton County. What he took that phone call in John's Creek, just a couple of miles inside the county line, and Fannie Willis knew that a potential crime had taken
place in her jurisdiction. For the longest time, she was the only ballgame in town, although she was swamped with a lot of other pressing cases, thousands of unindicted murders and the sexual assaults and all, so it took her a while to get up to speed. And if you remember, all for a long period of time it was not clear the Justice Department was going to do anything. At the end of the day, she was the last, but we believe it was the most consequential case of all.
Donald Trump didn't do what he did on his own. He had an army of Confederates who helped him pressure state officials, lie about election workers, and put pressure all across the board in Georgia to get him the votes he needed to win that state. And Fannie Willis brought a racketeering conspiracy case. It's the only conspiracy case that captures the full enormity of what Donald Trump was trying to do in Georgia.
Yeah, and Molly, there were other dimensions to the case and what happened in Georgia that we thought were important and would make a compelling narrative. One thing was the human toll in Georgia that you didn't quite see in the same way in any of the other potential cases.
Georgia was where Trump's efforts were most furious, and where the alleged criminality, you know, there was sort of the widest scope of alleged criminality that just touched more people and more sort of average Americans than in any of any of the other cases. And in particular, the sort of climate of fear and the threats that rained down against so many people who were involved in administering the
election and poll watchers. People know the stories about Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shay Moss, but it was up and down from the highest levels of government Brad Raffensberger obviously, and people in his office and their families, their spouses, their children, their brothers and sisters. I mean, it was pervasive, and we thought it was important to tell that story because that climate of fear could very easily be reignited
going forward. We are likely to have a rematch between Trump and Biden, and so we just thought that was an important part of the story.
The sort of human dimension.
Did you have any inkling of the relationship between the prosecutor and Nathan Wade?
We did not, Molly, And you know what's interesting, And I've talked to people inside the DA's office. The people around her and who worked most close mostly with her had no inkling either. I understand they were shocked when they learned about it.
It did happen.
It sounds like, at least according to Nathan Wade's account in a sworn Affidavid in that filing on Friday came in response to the original emotion. It did not start until quite a bit after Nathan Wade was hired, and it was not something that they were doing openly and you know, ostentatiously, so we did not get an inkling of it at all.
Let me just add a couple of things.
Look, who's clearly a misstep on her part had this relationship to give any ammunition at all to Trump and his co defendants in this case. But that said, if you take a step back and sort of look at this from you know, a higher lens, it really may
end up being a complete nothing burger. I mean, if, in fact, what Nathan Wade put in that smorn Affidavid last Friday, and backed up by Fannie Willims's own filing is accurate, and the relationship didn't begin until after he was hired, it's hard to see how this has any
impact on the case at all. If next Friday, in the hearing before Judge McAfee, he asks Ashley Merchant, the lawyer from Michael Roman who brought the motion to disqualify Fannie Willis, over this, tell me how the relationship between Fannie Willis and Nathan Wade prejudiced your client. She's going to be stumped because there's absolutely zero evidence that it did.
There was no constitutional rights of Michael Roman that were violated, no evidence of prejudice in the case or prosecutorial misconduct. So I mean, look, taking a step back, what are we talking about here and interoffice romance between two middle aged professionals who are single at the time. I mean, I know a thing or two about sex scandals, and this is about as lame as you get, Like, where's the here?
And by the way, just one more beat on this, Molly, because in the motion they make a lot about the kind of financial entanglements between the two of them, that Fannie Willis was authorizing these payments to the way and then Nathan Wade was using that same money. Money, of course, is fungible, so it's hard to say it's that same money. But that's allege to take her on lavish vacation's and Caribbean cruises. What Nathan Wade filed in the response was
that they alternated a spending. They were, you know, middle aged lawyers with good salaries, and they essentially went Dutch, so she paid for vacations as well. So I said, that really undercuts that part of the argument.
Yeah, look, I'll put a small caveat in in here, which is that, you know, Ashley Mershen, you know, quickly filed the response saying she's got evidence or witnesses who can contradict what was said in that affidavit. It's hard to imagine what she's talking about. She didn't put any affidavids in contradicting Nathan Wade's but you know, assuming she's got a photograph of the two of them making out in twenty twenty one before he was hired, you know, I would be you know, that was seriously a cut.
But I seriously doubt she does.
I think we would have seen it if she had fact at it. And so at the end of the day, it's hard.
To imagine the judge is going to want to have a full blown evidentiator hearing about the DA's sex life. It just absence some compelling evidence that something wrong was done here, and so far I haven't seen it.
The one thing I would say is that, you know, I think Trump lawyers tend to be a fairly sketchy crew, and obviously this is a right wing tactic to smear her, but it also is unnecessarily giving Trump world a little, you know, something to push back on, which is quite annoying.
And worth thinking about.
You know, if you're going after Trump world, you have to be so incredibly careful about everything you do.
Yeah, no doubt about that.
You have to get your house in order before you take one lawyer who are going to certainly use kind of scorched earth tactics. And remember, you know, Michael Roby, this is people have not commented all that much about this, but Michael Roman himself, the defendant whose lawyer filed the motion, This is a guy who you know, this is an OPO research person.
This is a guy who really.
Ran the intelligence unit for the Koch brothers and did OPO research for the Trump campaign.
And so you know, you sort of need to know who you're dealing.
With, you know, when you go into a case like this, and you know, we spend a lot of time with Fannie Willis interviewed her, you know, six times over many hours over the two and a half years that we reported this book, and so you know, we thought a lot about like, how did this happen? How did she allow herself to put herself in this situation? And you know,
she is a very complicated woman, She's very human. This obviously isn't the first time that people have been surprised by office relationships.
She is a kind of a force of nature.
She's a trial lawyer, and trial lawyers sometimes carry themselves with a certain amount of rabato and certitude, and she's got a touch of arrogance. Sometimes your virtues can also be your vices, and she is an extraordinarily talented trial lawyer and a kind of, again, a force of nature in the courtroom.
But you know, that.
Little bit of cockiness can also lead to blind spots, and perhaps that's what happened here.
Will you talk about her early time in the DIA's office and sort of how she cut her teeth, because that's really interesting.
She has an interesting background. Her father was a civil rights activist who became for a while a black panther. It's actually founded the Black Panther Party of Los Angeles. Talk about sexual relationships. He was living for a while with a fellow member of his Central Committee, Angela Datas, who went on to fame and notoriety.
She may have heard of her.
Right.
He sheds his radical beliefs, becomes an administrative law judge, and Washington raises Fani on his own. She goes to Howard Emery law school, wins the National Moot Court Championship contest, goes to the DA's office, and in a very short order she becomes the star litigator of the Fulton County Djay's office. She is, as many of them described our friends and foes, the force of nature in the courtroom.
You know that.
I used to say to young DA's who got hired in Fulton County, if you want to know how to do a homicide case, sit in and watch Fannie Willis do.
So.
She was the master of homicide prosecutions. And then she goes on to be the star litigator, as I said, And handle's the most sweeping controversial RICO case in the history of Georgia, which was the Atlanta Public Schools teacher's case, something that actually did not go down well in the African American community because all the defendants were people of color.
But Fannie Willis.
Won the case using RICO, the Georgia racketeering conspiracy law, and was widely acknowledged as the master of RICO in Georgia. It's interesting, you know, she's not the prosecutor that a lot of liberals would like her to be. She when she runs for DA, she runs on a tough on crime platform. She's endorsed by the police Union in the summer of George Floyd twenty twenty, and is endorsed by a Republican activist in Buckett who was worried about crime,
Mary Norwood. In fact, this was so offensive to many in the black community that Ti, the Grammy Award winning rapper who had become something of a political power broker in Atlanta, goes to Fannie Willis during our campaign and.
Offers her a deal.
Renounce the support of the police union, renounced Mary norwich support, give up their campaign contributions, and I'll make you whole. I'll make up for all of it and funeral money to your campaign. And Fannie Willis says, no way. They're a part of my community just as you are, and I'm not gonna renounce their support. It tells you a lot about who she is, and it's not She is not one of those progressive prosecutors backed by George Soros who Donald Trump likes to rail against.
Yeah, I'll say one of the things she says that she keeps saying, like, I don't understand why people are interested in my personal life. She's the daughter of a black panther Angela Davis was like her quase stepmom.
Does she really not understand why people are interested in it?
I'm sorry.
Angela Davis was long before.
Boddy Willis was born, so.
Right, but her father dated Angela Davis. Does she not.
Understand why that would be interesting to people?
You know, it's interesting Molly.
I had this very conversation with one of her closest advisors because she said that to over and over again.
Why are people interested in me?
You know, I understand why you might be interested in the case, and I can't really talk that much about the case, but why are you interested in me? And the person I spoke to sort of thought that, really it is a touch of naivete. Now, she has not been in the public eye in the way that she is now. She had never really run for office before. Yes, she'd been a well known trial lawyer, but really in
the legal community in Fulton County and in Atlanta. And I don't think it's a post I think she genuinely does not really understand why people would be interested in her as a person as opposed to her as a lawyer. I can't get inside her head. I can't fully understand why she thinks that, but I do think it's genuine.
I think it's authentic. It may also be part of the reason that she ended up in this awkward situation, because if you don't understand at then you know, you're not going to understand why anybody would be interested in your personal life in the way that obviously the country has become.
Right, it's such a strange thing to like to not think like, this is one of the highest profile prosecutions of one of the highest profile people, right, I mean, it's just sort of amazing, you know.
I wouldn't say she's terribly insulated.
I mean, she gave us a bunch of interviews, She's given other interviews, She gets out into the community.
She talks to people. It is a little perplexing.
But again, as I say, there's no indication that I've discerned that it's some kind of a pose.
Yeah, I mean, it's just a really interesting bit. Can you explain why it's taken so long? And then also talk a little bit about the Lindsay Graham stuff.
Yeah, Listen, We've unearthed a lot of nuggets in this book that was previously unknown about both Trump's pressure campaign and the investigation. But the one you're referring to which has gotten some notice is the Special grand Jury. Calls, you know, scores of witnesses. One of them was Lindsey Graham, who got to subpoena from Fannie Willis. He fights it up and down, saying, you know, speech in debate clause.
You know they're coming out, there's no justification for me having to testify, and I will fight this all the way. He loses and then gets called before the Special Grand Jury. According to our sources, he throws Trump under the bus, makes comments about how, you know, if Martians told him that the election was stolen, he'd probably believe them. Even suggests that Donald Trump cheats at golf.
Not the first person to suggest Donald Trump cheats at golf, but.
Maybe the first person to do so.
Under kids of this, and then after his grand jury apparents, he walks out, he spots Bonnie Willis. She comes up to thank him for testifying, and he like unloads himself, says, thank you for that. It was so cathartic, and then he hugs her. Oh my god, he's so the center hugs bonding. Willis the prosecutor pursuing Donald Trump, and then our redyaction. According to resources who watch it, is whatever, dude.
This anecdote, this nugget, among all the of the scoops we had in this book, seems to have like really resonated the most in some ways. It's such a you know, sort of sign of the times politically. Here is a guy in Lindsey Graham, who's hero and mentor was John McCain, famously the maverick who bucked his own party, you know,
based on his own convictions. And then Donald Trump comes along and Lindsey Graham, you know, swears total allegiance to him and defends him at every turn, and people are kind of wondering, well, you know, what happened to this guy, And of course that is symbolic of what happened to the Republican Party more generally. But there is a sense in which Lizzie Graham might be a little bit tortured,
that there's an internal struggle going on inside him. And so then when he has the opportunity and really has no choice but to tell the truth in front of the grand jury, he unburdens himself and he calls it cathartic and he hugs, And I do think this is something that this sort of split screen of what people say publicly and what they actually believe is something that you know that you would find in a lot of other Republicans if they were put before the grand jury and sworn to tell the truth.
Thank you both so much, Thank you, all right, thank you. Emily Atkin is the editor of He Did. Welcome back to Fast Politics. Emily.
Always happy to be here.
Molly, We're so happy to have you.
So there have been so many tiny climb not even tiny, enormous climate victories that nobody ever talks about, because why would we ever talk about anything. I originally booked you because I wanted to talk about this incredible move from the Biden administration, which you know is smart because Republicans went crazy about it, But it was like a little too complicated for them to like make into a Fox News talking point, so it didn't become the cultural war
that I think they wanted it to be. But I'm hoping you could walk us through the Biden administrations plan to pause natural gas exports, right.
Yeah. Actually, I think it's like so complicated that a lot of people don't matter where they're at on the political spectrum 're having a hard time understanding it.
Yeah, so talk us through it.
Yeah. So, actually, it's interesting what you said is the Biden's decision to pause natural gas exports. That's not really what happened. What the Biden administration did is they announced the decision to pause new hermit or proposed or died natural gas.
Right, so even less than what I said, even more sort of tentative, if you will.
This is why I think it's important to be careful about how you say it, because here are to really I think salient points about the decision. So pausing new permits, it's a big deal, and I'll get to that in a second. But here's what it's not. It means that no existing LNG that's liquified natural gas is the type of gas talking about. It's like frack gas that's been liquefied. No existing LNG export facility is affected. So there are eight existing export terminals around the country and they will
continue to operate. The flow of fossil fuels overseas will continue. And not only will that flow of LNG overseas continue, it will massively expand. There are ten at least ten new LNG exports facilities that have already gotten the approvals that Biden paused. They haven't been finished building yet. Some of them aren't even under construction. They will get built, and they will cause the amount of gas we export
overseas to double. Now, why this is still a big deal putting a temporary pause on new approvals is that there are at least six major proposed LERG export terminals that are affected. And if they just went through the normal process, if they just got rubber stamp approved the way that all the previous ones had, it would have ensured a massive amount of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere. There's one estimate that I've been using. It's life cycle
emission total of three hundred and seventeen coal plants. That's how much would have gotten into the atmosphere from the extraction, the fracking of the gas, the transporting of that gas to the facility, the liquefication of the gas, the chilling of the gas, the exporting of the gas, which has a lot of the leaks, and then the burning of the gas just you know, all of that. So that's that's a good reason to celebrate. I think it's also
like a it's a signal. I think the most thing to know about this decision is that it is a signal to other countries all over the world and fossil fuel producers that the United States is starting to take climate change into consideration of its decision making on whether or not to approve fossil fuel projects, which is, you would think, considering the climate situation that we're in, that we would like already be doing that.
Let's just talk a little bit about what that means sort of in the grander scheme of things.
So what does that mean.
It means that that sort of other countries will take sort of the Paris Climate Accord more seriously.
Well, okay, here's the thing. Right now, it means very little about what their countries are going to do. None of the facilities that we're going to be built or that still might be built. I feel like we got back up for a second and say, like, right.
Just because they're not being approved right now doesn't mean they won't be approved eventually.
This is a temporary pause, and the temporary pause is so the Biden administration can think up a new approval process that adequately considers the effects of climate change.
Right, which is actually what we want our federal government doing. I mean, maybe too slowly, but at least they're doing it right. I mean, I don't think the Trump administration would be pausing to consider that.
No, But if your job, which is the doe's job, is to decide whether a project is in the public interest, that's what the abermit is, right, is this American public interest? You would think it would just be a prudent thing to accurately consider the effect of these facilities on climate change.
Yes, for sure.
Now go on and explain to us about this sort of incredible thing that I read about in Politico, about how renewables are actually really taking off in America and they're actually the second largest.
Can you talk to us about that, Yeah, a little bit.
I mean, this is something that's so frustrating I think as so my job generally, and what I do is I try to distill and debunk a lot of fossil fuel misinformation because so much of our collective understanding about climate change has been subliminally and subconsciously shaped by the fossil fuel industry. Is messaging designed to delay our transition to renewable energy.
And that's true in Saudi Arabia too, Right, Like America and Saudi Arabia are the two countries where they're most affected by the advertising of the fossil fuels.
Right yeah, But also like I mean, if you go to the UK, you'll see the UK is like starting to crack down on it. Europe in general is starting to crack down it a little.
But like, but they're better off than we are, like they have had real science.
So but this idea that we are not ready to transition to renewables, that we need a quote unquote bridge with the gas is decades old, and it's a delay tactic to delay or transition to renewables so that the fospiel companies can continue to profit. What you're seeing now is that renewable energy is already the cheapest source of electricity in many parts of the world. Really, more and more,
we're just seeing evidence that gas. The argument that gas is this bridge that we need and then it's completely unrealistic to transition to renewables in places that are dependent on coal is just very contrary to the fact that.
What you're saying is it's bullshit. Gas does not help renewables work.
You know, doesn't help how would that be true. I always think itself funny when it's like gas helps renewables get work in what way?
Well, it helps Exxon make money. So talk to me about what the renewables are, and then I would love you to talk about this Johnson Act because part of the problem having with offshore wind is a regulation from the nineteen twenties.
Right.
Oh, we haven't had offshore wind in the United States at all.
Right because of this regulation from the nineteen twenties called the Johnson Act. This is a country where we don't regulate anything that we need to regulate, but we regulate everything that we don't need to regulate.
I think that's so I'm gonna be honest with you here, Like the Johnson Act itself is not something that I've done a ton of reporting on.
Well, nor has anyone else, so they're in good shape.
But what I have done a lot of reporting on is just the I mean, probably for the last decade I have been reporting on various attempts to get offshore wind off the ground. And literally, I think it was just earlier in January the first we had the first wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts produce some energy finally. But yeah, we've had a lot of fossil fuel funded
opposition to renewable power development in the United States. You're seeing that pop up all over the now, particularly with the IRA the Inflation Reduction Act getting passed, and there's all this incentive for communities to build wind and solar and battery facilities, and so you'll see these fossil fuel funded front groups come into communities under the name of
like Concerned Citizens of Ohio. Right, They're riling up communities by spreading this information about what these renewable energy facilities will do to them. The worst part about it is that, like some of it is based in real concerns, you know. For instance, I think with offshore wind is a huge one. There's a massive movement funded by the fossil fuel industry to rile people up about the potential harmful impact on Wales.
These are people to not give a fuck about Wales. I think it's really important. Like this is like Donald Trump being like, you know, it's a real danger to the oil and gas companies. When Donald Trump is like it kills the birds.
And you're like, I when have you ever cared for birds?
Exactly?
Yeah, And well, never mind that also the fossil fuel funded think tanks that are behind a lot of these movements, they are also at the same time pushing policies that would kill whales.
Now and fuk about the whales.
Right, Most whales are killed and injured by boat strikes and the fishing boats. And you don't see any concern about fishing boats. And that's not to say there aren't people who aren't fossil fuel funded actors, just like regular people who are concerned about whales.
Right, But Exxon is not concerned about whales. They do not give a fuck.
Their concern is getting inflamed by this moneyed operation to stop offshore wind development and essentially take a small concern and blow it up to this level that becomes essentially misinformation, solely to destroy the competition of fossil fuels.
So let's talk about what renewables are sort of the future, and what the Biden administration is doing right and what the bid administration is doing wrong.
I mean, I think a really good example about renewables being the future is looking at Texas and vulnerability of their electric grid to very extreme increasing climate change fueled weather right in Texas just recently, battery storage, solar power, and wind energy were the reason that they were able to have AC during a one to oh three degree heat weight because the heat was causing some of the
gas facilities to fail. So these giant batteries that generated power to stable the grid when large gas and coal plants had these power outages, that was the reason. I think one was it. It was like back in June of last year, there was an instance where like over a two week period, two times a nuclear power plant dropped offline and the two coal plants sufvered separate outages because of a heat wave, and then giant batteries for the only reason that they were able to stabilize the grid.
So we're seeing this not only in the US but all over the world that we're seeing renewables, batteries, wind solar as lifelines. They're actually making up for some of this small.
They're bridging the gap for the dirty electricity right correct.
But in terms of what Biden is doing right and what Biden is doing wrong, I think, to make it really simple, it's that what Biden is doing right is making it possible and taking out barriers to be able to build renewable energy and expand clean energy capacity throughout the country, most significantly through the passage of the Inflation
Reduction Act. What Biden is doing wrong in terms of policies that will effectively slow climate change is continuing to green light through his bureaucratic agencies massive fossil fuel development. I think what you'll see with the LNG decision is that you'll see environmental groups say stuff like this is the biggest statement of president has ever made to stand up to the fossil fuel industry.
It's not quite enough.
Yeah, it's true, but that's because no one's ever done to do that. So it's like the real love, right, So like just ish temporary pause that realistically he could reverse the moment he gets re elected. There's nothing stopping him from doing that. Is still the biggest thing that has ever done to stand up to the fossil feel industry. Just saying hold up for a couple months, right.
Yes, for sure, and I agree, but it's worth pausing for a minute and just talking about Donald Trump is running on basically a drill baby drill kind of ethos, but actually America drills now maybe too much too from an environmental standpoint, apps about too much. Yes, Because now aren't we the net exporter of natural gas?
We are the largest exporter by far in the world of gas. The next one behind us is Australia, and they export half as much as we do. And that's only happened within the last ten years, so a massive amount of that has been under Biden's watch.
Because I want to get back to this Trump say he was going to be dictator for a day because he was going to drill, drill, drill. At some point, you have so much gas that you start to make gas not even valuable, right, I mean just from the economic standpoint here, not from the climate catastrophe standpoint, which we're already well on our way.
Perhaps, Except here's the thing. We are shipping most of that gas to other countries, right right, right. The really weird double edged sword here is that not only are we producing a lot of gas, you would think that maybe, like, oh, that would make gas prices really low.
Here right now, But it doesn't necessarily.
No, because we actually don't have that much gas because we keep sending it overseas, and that makes a lot more money for the fossil fuel companies, but it doesn't lower the price of gas at home. So it's like the thing that you would think Republicans are really going to be excited. Yeah, you know, we're producing so much that price is so low. It's like, no, you're producing so much and you're making a lot of money for the gas companies, but you're still keeping prices high for Americans.
You can talk about like energy security all you want, but that is a very abstract concept to most people. Most people just care about how much money they're paying to fuel up their car. The reality is that at this point, it would cost you less money to charge your car exactly.
The oil and gas and coal, especially coal is way more expensive than renewables.
It is cheaper to have a reliable and sustainable source of energy that is not subject to geopolitical whims, right, So, like, even just taking the conversation we're having out of the picture,
it's like, I don't understand why. From a pragmatic perspective of conservative politics, if you want to keep energy costs low, if you want to keep it not subject to geopolitical wins, then it's better to immediately transition to renewable sources, to sources produced by the actual Earth than these global conglomerate boil and gas companies right now.
It's incredible staff. Emily.
The site is called Heated. You cover a lot of really important staff. We really appreciate you.
I hope you'll come back absolutely.
Thank you for having me on.
No moment.
Jesse Cannon Maley Jung Fast this week public hearing to here at the Supreme Court the Fourteenth Amendment case against Donald Trump being allowed to be on the ballot. What are you seeing here?
Fourteenth Amendment section through Donald Trump is not allowed on the ballot, is the supposition here? As an officer of the American government, look love to see Clarence Thomas, for whom conflict of interest has never been an issue, is going to refuse to recuse himself. You may remember his wife has had some experience with trying to stop the steal and justice.
Thomas is complete. Refusal to ever recuse himself is our moment of fucker.
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going, and again thanks for listening.