Hi.
I'm Mollie John Fast, and this is Fast Politics, where we discuss the top political headlines with some of today's best minds, and Republican Chris Stewart plans to resign his seat in Congress, shrinking Kevin McCarthy is majority. We have a great show today. Egen Carroll and ROBERTA. Kaplans dot by to talk about their victory against Donald Trump and what it means to finally hold him accountable. Then we'll talk to the Washington Post Jeff Stein about what actually
is in this big debt ceialing deal. But first we have author of Lucky How Joe Biden barely won the presidency, NBC's John Allen. Welcome back to Fast Politics, fan favorite John Allen.
Mollie, John Fast, How are you.
I'm good.
So let's talk about what's happening right now.
Republicans in the Rules Committee.
What's going to happen with the dead ceiling.
The dead ceiling is going to be raised. It's not clear exactly who's going to vote for it, what the process will be. But one good rule for watching Congress is that if the Speaker of the House wants something to happen and a majority of the members, not the majority party, but a majority of the members want it to happen.
It will happen, and I think also it looks like in the Senate that's also.
True, no doubt about it. I mean, Mitch McConnell doesn't want to have fights over there. There will be enough votes to get it through the Senate. Look, there may be some job over the next like twenty four seventy two hours, but the truth is, it is very difficult for somebody who wants to block this from happening to
actually block it from happening. The can delay, they can throw up roadblocks, they get angry about it, but at the end of the day, the vast majority of members of Congress want this thing done and off their plate, and they want to make sure that the Knight's Nation doesn't default. It's going to happen. I mean, anytime you got Kevin McCarthy and Joe Biden Agreen on something, you got you know, a broad swath of the American public behind it too.
Let's talk about what is in this dead ceiling.
What they're going to do is basically suspend it for two years, so it won't be a problem until after the next presidential election, so it won't be back in the same spot six months from hour, a year from now. They're going to basically put in place some spending caps for distractionary spending, which is the annual spending that Congress does on basically all the domestic programs you can think
of a non military spending. They are going to rescind I think it's about twenty eight billion dollars of money that was put out as COVID relief, you know, in previous legislation. I think it's mix of what Biden thinks getting of his presidency and some of the leftover from the end of the Trump administration, and you know, a few other bells and whistles.
Yeah, I mean, this seems like a victory for Biden. I mean, he didn't have to make that many changes.
You know.
I Mean the one thing in this dead ceiling package that people don't like is the mandatory work requirements with SNAP. But those already existed, and the ages is pretty high and there are a lot of exceptions. I mean, doesn't it seem like a win for Biden?
So right, they're going from fifty to fifty five for the age you would have to have work requirements for a couple of per snap. But here's the thing. If you were one of the people that all of a sudden as work requirements that didn't before, it really sucks for you. It's terrible. In terms of the actual population that's going to a fact, it's pretty small. To your point,
their exceptions. The question of whether Biden won, absolutely Biden one because the alternative of the nation going into default and the economy potentially going into a tailspin on his watch was politically unthinkable not to mention obviously for the health of the economy and to help the country. So yes, it's a win for him if this gets done. It is also a win in theory for the country. Right, he did give up more than he said he was
going to give up. He said he would never negotiate, or said he wouldn't negotiate on raising the dead ceiling, and he did do some negotiation. And there's some things that progressives are going to be unhappy with here recording those work requirements we talked about, But you know, at the end of the day, most of the Congress can be able to vote for it, and it prevents what could have been a catastrophic political situation providing So yeah,
it's a w for him. I don't know if it's the kind of thing you know that people are a year and a half from now going to vote on. Say I'm going with Biden because the averted a debt limit crisis, but for the NOS.
Well, I mean, you might not vote for it, but you certainly could theoretically vote against your economy being completely right, I mean, had we saw when this first debt ceiling drama happened in the Obama administration that our credit, our national credit was downgraded and that really tanked the market, so you could see how this could play out in a bad way for the Biden administration, Well.
I could see how it would have they not come to a deal. Yeah, I mean absolutely, I think you know, potentially politically detaster. It's been on how long agoes I mean, if it's a day or two beyond the default point, it's probably not a big deal. But you know, if they've been in an impast for a long time, you could absolutely see you know, major major disruptions in the economy, and ultimately, when people are upset with what's happening in the world, they tend to vote against people in power.
It is easier to throw a president out than to throw a Congress out, because the House of Representatives divides its districts up in ways that make it very difficult to lose general collections. Right right, there's only a handful of districts they're competitive, you know, which puts Biden. And also there's sort of a collective way into the Congress, even a collective partisan blameing. I here to say, oh, it's the Republican that this doesn't necessarily mean people take
it out on their individual number. Whereas the President of the United States lives, lives and dies politically on you know, how the country is doing when he comes up for election the next time.
Yeah, for sure. So let me ask you about what else we're going to see. Now, we're going to see this dead ceiling situation continue on, and then really Congress is going to leave.
Right, you should not expect a whole lot to get done between now and the twenty twenty four election. I mean there will be some low hanging group Jesus Christ.
Wait, I thought we were going to say this summer, not the twenty twenty four election.
I mean, there's some that they that they probably will work on and maybe they'll get some deal on, you know, a new farm bill or something. But like with the Republican House at place, can be very difficult for her. Anything done legislatively but sort of an agenda item for him, you know, which is which is why I think you're going to hear the White House once this is sign sealed, delivered probably talk about, you know, a big accomplishment in getting it done. It is not an accomplishment in the
way of life. You know, an infrastructure bill and you see like you know, construction site and bridges going off, things like that. But there aren't going to be a whole lot of probably you're not going to be a whole lot of wind sticks out over the next eighteen months for the White House or for anybody else for that.
That's it.
That's very dysfunctional.
Welcome to the swamp.
We are going to see these Supreme some Supreme Court decisions come down because June is Supreme Court season. That will very likely have reverberations in the twenty twenty four election. If history is any guide.
Yeah, I mean estreating a guide. We saw a reverberation
and Dons in the last election. Cycle, and that decision still reverberating now where you're seeing as states actually start to implement their new freedom to restrict abortion, and there is a race to put on the most extreme restrictions along Republicans, and in the case of Brondosaantis is in that group, and also in the group of Republican presidential with a six week abortion band that he likes to talk about in Iowa and doesn't like to talk about another.
Let's talk about Iowa. Everyone of the Republican the not Trump lane, which is like the California highways, says them. At this point, everyone in the not Trump lane is in Iowa, and Trump is in Iowa too.
It's not a way in that non Trump lane. It's more like an ocean, a non Trump ocean of candidates that is somehow growing. I don't know if that has to do with melting ice caps or some other phenomenon, but you know, we're looking at Mike Pen's probably getting in pretty soon. We're looking at Chris Christy probably getting
in pretty soon, possibly christinued, maybe Glenn Young. I mean, there's a whole lot of people looking at getting into this race, all of which says that they're not convinced that Trump will win, and they're not convinced that the Santis will be the best alternative once voters have a chance to look at people. As far as Iowa goes, you're gonna have the Stantus there tomorroorrow and the following day. Trump's going to be there Tomorrow and the following day.
Of course, it's a holiday week, so I'm bad on my days, but they're gonna be there Wednesday and Thursday. Trump's doing a Hannity Fox town Hall from Iowa from Des Moines on Thursday. By that point, the Santas will already be headed toward New Hampshire, where he's got a I think it's a four stop swing on Thursday, and then South Carolina on Friday. But Iowa is one hundred percent the center of the Republican political universe right now.
But Democrats are not going to Iowa.
That's because the president in search of renomination without Plum, deciding that he was going to exchange the calendar and make it help him as much as possible, which having watched politics we is not terribly shocking. I wen't want to go to Iowa, where he has never gotten off the ground. Politically, there are plenty of reasons not do Iowa as your first state, especially to part you know, with the diverse party. Iowa is not a particularly diverse state.
But in the case of Joe Biden, moving Iowa out of first made it less likely that he would have a significant challenge to his renomination.
We're going to start seeing this Republican primary field have debates coming up soon, right starting in.
August August in Milwaukee there or be Donald Trump, because Donald Trump is not committed to going to the debate, which raises the possibility that, like you know, Desantus, goes out there with a bunch of other candidates and they beat up on him instead of beating up on the proprunner.
Does that seem likely to you? It seems likely to make.
It doesn't sound like Trump's in the mood to debate in August, so I mean he told her, he told the Republican Party didn't want to debate in August, and they went ahead and schedule then anyway, so he will or won't show up. Like my guest is, he will find a way to get themselves significant attention during that time period, whether it's on the stage or not.
When will we see Republican primary voting early.
Next year in Iowa. I don't believe the actual date that check, but I mean the first part of the year next year anywhere maybe get that worry.
I mean, do you think there's a chance to stop Trump at this lay to date?
It's very difficult to say that there's no chance that Trump will be stopped a given that we're so far away, given that he's facing a trial in Manhattan, possible trial in Georgia, possible trials in Washington, DC. Ateral level, I think it's way too early to say that this race is over. On the other hand, I do think that there was a theory of the case of an alternative to Trump that has kind of been blown apart. Theory of the case was most Republicans are done with Trump.
They think enough of Trump, they want to turn the corner, and all somebody else has to do is consolidate the non Trump vote to win. And right now, Donald Trump has a majority of Republicans in pretty much every national poll, which means that you could collect all of the non Trump vote right now and still lose. I think some
of those people are up for grabs. They weren't with them before they're with them now can be people that moved back to another candidate, But that theory that, you know, if there was just one running against him, it would definitely be that person that has fallen by the wayside.
Yeah, and again we don't know what's going to happen, but it certainly feels like that this has gone exactly as Trump would have liked it too.
Oh absolutely, And I think that, you know, the the other piece of that is now that he has a majority, what it means is anybody who's going to beat him has to take a bunch of his base. Yeah, that's been a challenge. Nobody's been able to do that so far. Doesn't mean somebody could do in the future. But I think the only way to speak to that base is to like defeat Trump in some visible, tangible way, whether
that's in debates or in states or whatnot. You know, I think a lot of the Trump based looks at him as the toughest customer in the room, and the way to get to the hearts of the folks who care most about that is probably to show that you're a toper customer and Trump and that is no easy feat.
I mean again, just to go back to history for a minute, Hillary Clinton won those debates.
I mean, if you were scoring in like a traditional sense, hillary Clinton won the debates or won the shed of them, right collectively, certain high points for Trump within that set of three debates. On the other hand, what Trump did was he delivered the messages that he wanted to to the audiences that he wanted to deliver them. So again, if you're scoring in you know, sort of a traditional the points are like a fencing contest, and you know what the rules are for scoring, you'd say that Hillary
Quinton won. But you know, Donald Trump brought a shotgun instead of an a p or instead of a foil to the offensing. So it's a little harder to judge in traditional terms.
Right, there's a precedent for Donald Trump losing a debate and still winning a nomination or winning the contest.
Yes, it's possible for him to win, even if it looks to anybody who's watched the step before that he lost. Also, just a real quick question, does anybody ever use that four letter word for a fencing sword meat meat for anything other than the New York.
Times prosper puzzle noe.
Yeah, So, I apologize for coining a charm on.
Podcast John Allen, please come back whenever you ask.
Egene Carroll is a journalist, author, and advice columnist.
ROBERTA.
Kaplan is a lawyer focused on commercial litigation and public interest. Welcome back, Egen, and welcome Robbie.
Hello, Hello, Hello, really good to be here.
Very excited to have you both here to talk about the case. Egen, you're like the only person who has managed to hold Trump accountable in any way.
It's astonishing may that what you just said is true. And the reason it is true is because Robbie Kaplan, for four straight years has stood up to every single one of his wrangling moves, and she got us to trial. She got us in front of nine jurors. They heard our truth and we want It's an astonishing accomplishment, and we hope other people follow in our footsteps, right, Robbie, to do.
Robbie, I wanted to ask you when Egene came to you, and again full disclosure came to you through George.
I knew there.
Have been other times when he's had lawsuits that haven't worked out for him, but where he's actually really been held accountable. How did you approach this case that led to your success.
So when my son was little, one of the favorite books that he had that I like to read to him was called A Dog with a Bone. It had good rhymes, but I don't think that's the only reason I liked it. There is something about that in my nature.
It's probably both bad and good. I can often be like a dog with a bone, and here in this case, I think it's fair to say that the entirety of our law firm, Kaplain Hacker and Think kind of stuck to it no matter what happened, no matter what the ways we were writing were, whether high or low, we just kept at it, and ultimately we got to where we are today with a trial and the jury verdict.
In Egene's paper, Robbie Kaplan is relentless.
Relentless.
She's that way in her good humor, She's that way in her enjoyment of a good dinner. She's that way in court, that way. I saw her give wedding vows the other day. She married two very fortunate people, and she was relentless in making sure that she sent them off to have a very happy, happy marriage. I mean, the woman she doesn't stop.
So you've had a lot of success, Robbie with the Defensive Marriage Act.
Yes, it's to be the tenth year nid versa in January twenty sixth, United States v.
Windsor.
But we never got ROW codified in Congress. But we did get same sex marriage codified in Congress. Do you think that that was because of this? Do you think that was some connection because of what? Because of you winning in the Supreme Court?
Yeah? I look, I think two things happened.
One the Windsor case, and Edie Windsor, who sadly is no longer with us, was the perfect plainiff to bring that claim in a way that's very similar to Egene was the perfect plainiff against Donald Trump. And I can explain that, but they really were both perfectly situated to
bring the claims that they brought. And I think through the litigation of Windsor to the American people really saw, which was our goal, that the marriage that Edie Windsor had to her spouse, the Aspire, was no different than any marriage anyone else ever had, and maybe in a lot of ways better, since by the time of her death was a quadric beleegic and Edie spent many years taking care of her. After we won Windsor, there was
really a groundswell of litigation. I remember the first case was in Utah, of all places, where courts were saying that under the logic of Windsor, we have to allow same sex marriages to happen. And I think what happened there is just the sheer numbers. The sheer numbers of people getting married, gay people getting married, and the resulting public acceptance made it impossible, I think for things to
get turned back. Now, one could argue, while I'm sure you're thinking this, why isn't the same thing true with abortion? It sures how should be even the poll numbers we're seeing today, But we are starting to see similar situations in terms of states and various local elections really going very strongly against the anti choice candidates. So maybe we're just at the beginning of the process. Sadly there.
So the Trump deposition, I've heard you say this in interviews, but I need to ask you, Robbie, did you know you had.
Him Well, yeah, we were feeling pretty good about what he was saying in the deposition.
I remember I'm speaking about that moment when he mistakes Eugene for marlaw Yeah.
Yeah, I was astounded by it. And when you read the transcript and if you watch the video, it was very clear that it wasn't a up by me in any way. I wasn't trying to trick him. He mentioned the photograph, which he said he saw at the time, and I said, well, let me show you a copy. I think I have one year to confirm, and that's when he pointed to Egene and said it was Marlowe.
Yeah. We were pretty stunned. I literally, I think almost fell off my seat.
Our job as lawyers was not to show any shock or surprise, and we certainly tried very hard not to show it. But I can tell you that when we took the next break, there was a lot of celebration in high fives going on among the lawyers on our team, for sure.
And of course Molly.
I think the main reason why Trump did not show up for the trial was that Robbie had the deposition and if he took the stand, it would have been pure, unadulterated murder. I don't know how he could have testified at all with Robbie giving him the questions. Mali, when you read that deposition. You'll see trap after trap that he fell into. It was an amazing seven hours or however many What happened.
When about lunch at mari A Lago? What was going on there? That was the other case, So it actually had been there the week before.
Right for another case that our firm has against Trump. It's based on a pyramid scheme, a multi level marketing scheme that we believe he fraudulently promoted to working class Americans at that lunch. Let me put it this way, he got very angry at his lawyers because they had graciously offered to provide us with launch at mar A Lago and he didn't know that, and he was not
at all happy about it. I'm not going to get into any more detail than that, but he was not a happy camper when he realized that they had made that offer to us.
Egene, I want to ask you when you saw that picture. I think of you at that period so much, because you know, that was the period when I was growing up, when my mother was, when you and my mother were close. When you saw that picture, did you remember when that was taken and some of the color around it.
Yeah.
Joe Takopia, who He's an amazingly likable fellow. But she made it out like I had kept this photo and on an altar, and then I had worshiped this photo daily. What had happened is when I was writing the book where I just.
Wait, wait, do you mean that wasn't true.
I was looking because I wrote, remember that little book.
Called what do we Need Men For?
Men For?
Yeah, I was looking for cheerleading pictures and I stumbled on it in an album and I thought, oh my god. Then I remembered that it was probably back taking at the time when I was writing for Saturday Night Live, because I'm with John Johnson, one of the great guys, you know, an anchorman on TV and your ex husband and my ex husband, a great guy, as Trump said, a great guy, bad labor, John Johnson, and so I was very pleased to find it.
But I completely stumbled on it.
Hadn't even remembered that I had it, didn't remember it being taken, and I did remember meeting mister and missus Trump at the time, but I didn't really I couldn't quite recall that there.
Was a photo of it. So yeah, I was very happy to see it.
I want to ask you both about the jury selection. It's such an interesting case because you did have a jur and later in reporting I saw Robbie that you guys tried to get him taken off the jury, right.
I sure did, and we failed completely, But yes, can you talk.
About that because that germ when I heard he was an avid Timpoole watcher. Timpoole is a far right podcaster, right right.
Let me back up.
So Judge Chaplin has a practice of doing jury selection in civil cases a little bit like speed dating.
There's a whole bunch of people.
In the room and he asked kind of like a lightning round of questions of each jur with all the other jurors there, and it goes very fast, and you know he's intending to be as efficient as possible in it.
Understandable. So the guy in question, the juring question who to this day I have no idea what his name is.
That he was asked where he got his news from, and both we and the court reporter and a bunch of other people thought we heard him say Temple, a podcast called Temple or something like that, right, And ironically, he was wearing a black jacket and black pants, and I thought.
Well, maybe he's an Orthodox Jew. It didn't even occur.
To me that there was anything going on, and we made the strikes that we made, and he was not one of the people that we struck then, so I think in the Daily Beasts there was an article written that said that actually the reporter there had heard it correctly. It turns out had heard him too, have been saying Timpoole, who is a He doesn't think he's extreme, but he's a pretty extremist kind of alt right type guy who has a very popular podcast on YouTube.
So we immediately brought that up to the judge.
Everyone agreed that the mistake was mutual in the sense that no one had heard that other than the Daily Beast guy, and the judge held a series of proceedings to decide what to do. The juror answered a number of questions, and I think Judge Kaplan correctly held that based on his answers, there was no basis for what's called up for cause challenge. That he had said he could consider the evidence fairly and he would consider it fairly, and we now know it turns out that's what he did.
But we did make a motion based on the fact that he said that he listens to this podcast to exclude him because the podcast had not only it's not only pretty alt right, but it specifically said some things pretty negative about Egene.
Carroll, which didn't make us very happy either.
But we to this day, the guy said he didn't recall hearing any of those podcasts.
And to this day, I believe that he did it, you know, Robbie.
Judge Kaplan was also correct about one another, saying when emally, when he gave the jury instructions before they left to go make up their minds, he said it was around eleven thirty when he was giving instruction, right, Robbie, around eleven thirty in the morning. Yeah, And he said, now you're going to break for lunch, and if you come to a decision during lunch, you should send a note.
I'm rolling my eyes. I'm thinking these jury members are such a mystery to us that there were no way, no way they're going to come to any sort of decision about anything during lunch. And then we went off to lunch, and then Robbie, what happened?
Yeah, and then they came back like it took him.
It was less than two and a half hours really with lunch breaks, but they came back in two and a half hours.
Were you shocked at how quickly I could hardly stand up? Yeah, we were all shocked.
I mean, there was a lot of fear on our part. I think I don't think anyone on our team thought that we lost, but we were very worried that they were going to you know, you can give a defamation plan of a dollar, like a symbolic dollar, right, and we were very worried that that was going to be the end result because we couldn't figure out how they'd
had enough time to come up with damages. The one thing that was really clear, given the amount of time that they've spent, or the relatively small amount of time that they spent deliberating, is it must have been that when they came in they had all made up their minds. It doesn't sound like they spent all that much time arguing about the merits, right.
It's amazing, amazing, Molly, I've never been through anything like that, Molly.
My partner Sean Prowley, who did the trial with me, just walked into my office.
You might if she joined us?
Yeah?
Please?
I was wondering if either of you, Robbie Sean wanted to just talk a little bit about what it means to have opened the door to defamation and what that could mean for other plaintiffs.
Let me begin and then everyone else should fill in.
So when you think about what happened here, what Donald Trump did to each and Carroll, and she explained this beautifully while on the stand. Obviously he heard her terribly when he sexually assaulted her, and there's no question about that.
But in terms of the harm, the lasting harm, or the harm that had the most dramatic impact, it was the defamation because by going out in June twenty seventeen and saying that she was a nutjob and it was a hoax and she was doing a part of a conspiracy with you, Molly and George Conway and a whole bunch of other people, that she just made it up,
he destroyed her reputation. Egene spent her career as a journalist and an advice columnist, someone that readers turned to for the truth and for honest, candid advice, and so to say that that person it was a wet job was horribly damaging and Egene lost her job, and there were all kinds of kind of reverberations from that, and to this day, there's a significant percentage of the American population who thinks she is exactly what Donald Trump says
she is right. So we knew our original case was only a defamation case, and we knew going in that the greatest damage was defamation. Now, ironically, of the various defamation claims, the greatest damage is the case that's still to be decided, or at least still to be decided on damages, which is the original case, which we call Carol One, because that relates to the statements that he made that summer of twenty seventeen, and that's where the
greatest damage was done to Egene's reputation. The expert that we use who took the stand in Egene's trial, has calculated that they're the damage figures somewhere in the range between ten and twenty million dollars, and that's why we're
so intent on bringing that case to a close. And that's the case where we sought we're now seeking punitive damages based on the CNN town hall and why that's relevant is punitive damages can only be assessed based on a ratio of the compensatory damages, right, So if the compensator damages are a million dollars, then constitutionally speaking, you can only get five or six million dollars in punitive damages.
But if the compensatory damages, as they are in Carol two, are somewhere on the range of ten to twenty million dollars, then for punitive damages you're talking a lot of money.
So, but can you explain just the nuances here? The second case is you went back to the first case. You didn't file another case.
No, no, no, the first case. The first case is still pending.
And the reason why it's behind because of very complicated issues involving federal law and whether or not when Trump said what he said in June twenty seventeen, he was saying to serve himself, He was saying it to serve himself, or he was saying in order to serve the interests of the American people. Judge Kaplan, not surprisingly given the context, concluded that he.
Was saying it for his own personal reasons.
We believe that discovery has now confirmed that the DC Court of Appeals, which got the case after the Second Circuit sent it there, concluded that that is the relevant question whether when he said it, he was too little attenuated. It's old fashioned language, too little attenuated to serve the American people.
If that's true, then that case will go forward.
But all that's left to do in that case is just damages because the fact that the statements, which are almost the same or defamatory, that's now a settled issue.
As between Egen and Donald Trump.
This is so interesting, Egene. Do you feel vindicated?
Yes, I feel like I got my name back. I feel like he dragged me through the mud.
He lied about me, he said terrible things about me, and the jury said that he was lying and that I was telling the truth. So yes, Molly, I do feel vindicated. But not just for me. This is really not just for me. This is for every woman who has had to put up with a man grabbing at her and then laughing and say he didn't.
Do it, you know, And that's millions of women. So this was just not for me, but it was for what, uh, you know, for every woman in the nation.
Thank you both so much.
Thank you It pleasure. Hi.
It's Mollie, and I am wildly excited that for the first time fast politics the show you're listening to right.
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Jeff Stein is the White House economics reporter for the Washington Post. Welcome back to Fast Politics time.
Thanks for having me.
Mollie.
I had to have you because you are one of the only people who has read what is in the debt.
Ceiling deal, as we call it.
Here, So talk to me about what's actually in there.
What's actually in there is really anticlimactic. I feel like I have to say, We've been doing these stories for months and months about this epic, drag out battle between McCarthy and Biden, and it was going to maybe transform Americans society or destroy the economy or you know, cause this global financial crisis, and what we got is this like kind of amazing nothing burger. Really, in both directions, which maybe was more predictable in hindsight than we realized
at the time. The bill, I think the most important thing from the Democrats perspective is it gets this headache off the White House's plate for two years. They don't have to think about the debt ceiling until after the twenty four presidential election. The Republicans got some I think, not really as many concessions as they were for certainly and not as long as many people expected, but.
And not as many as they were bragging they were going to have.
Yeah, so freezing domestic spending, which is an inflation adjusted cut, new work requirements on food stamps and federal welfare benefits, but.
There's an age cap on that.
Yes, the new work requirements will sunset for snap in twenty thirty. Some permitting changes that Republicans had been seeking.
But that's a separate bill, right.
No, No, that will be in there. I mean, but they were. They're really quite minimal, I mean, the kind of changes that Republicans really want. The White House fought to withdraw. And I'll just quickly say that I think the biggest Republican win here is of the eighty billion dollars that the White House approved last year for the Internal Revenue Services expansion. The Republicans got twenty billions, so really a quarter of that huge initiati from the Biden administration,
that twenty billion will be rescinded. And you know, Republicans really do not like the idea of more aggressive tax enforcement. And this money was going to be used for proving taxpayer services call lines, and so this will continue to make it harder for the IRS to rebuild. So that's kind of the broad contours of the deal.
Right, They're psyched because their donors might be less likely to get audited. Though actually the reporting has shown that the IRS tends to actually sort of stick into people who are poor.
Right, well for now, right, But like that, the whole idea was like, let's change.
That, right, which is which actually would be good. But I always think of you as as I read you all the time, and you know, you obviously are a straight reporter, but you tend to be a little more on the progressive side.
Am I allowed to say that? Should I not say that?
I'm allowed to just be silent and response mabe.
Okay, great.
I had expected that this would be a negotiation where the progressives might be slightly unhappy, but they would, you know, they would realize that, like the fourteenth amendument. As much as I would love to see the Fourteenth Amendment invoked, it would come down to some very scary, eleventh hour stuff. Relying on a very trumpy core or minting the enormously valuable coin, which again you know you're in unprecedented territory, might work, but could The stakes are very high to
start doing unprecedented stuff. But I actually think this is not as much of a lose for progressives as a lot of us were expecting.
I think a lot of this is expectations setting. I think if you had said six months ago that the White House would have to give up a quarter of its IRS expansion as a price to get Republicans not to blow up the economy and think what is right, been a little disappointed in that. But I will say I mean about a week and a half ago, I was writing a story, a seventeen hundred word story that I had written that was never published, which is just
the most painful thing for a journalist. The real victim here. But the thing that they were looking at that I was writing about the prospect of was from the math I was doing, based on what I was hearing from negotiations was an eight to twelve percent cut to the part of the federal budget that's most important for anti poverty initiatives. And in the context of that as the barrel that we were looking down the end of the irs, changes are like from the progressive perspective, you know, like
a little slap on the wrist. I think, if you're weighing, on the one hand, trying to make sure that the poorest people in this country have life saving services and you protect that, you prevent that from getting hit, and the price you have to pay is making it a little easier for rich people to cheat on their taxes. I think that's a trade that progresses make every day and twice on Sunday.
Yeah, that was my sense, And I think that the MAGA crew had hoped they were going to be able to blow up the federal government.
Well.
I also think like from their perspective, it makes sense that you know, we've had this whole evolution from the twenty tens and the Tea Party and this sort of deep ideological ferment in the Republican Party about spending and a lot of us myself included, you know, saw the Trump era as kind of a retreat. Trump just said, you know, I don't really care about any of this Paul Ryan stuff. I will increase the debt by more than any president of American history, by over seven trillion dollars.
And then Republicans came back in and said, we're going to go back, like just let's do rip Van Winkle and pretend like the last four years never happened and reincarnate our tea party selves. And I think one possible interpretation will have to see how that shakes up. But one possible reading of what's happened here is that the Trump effect on the party's ideological core actually was real, and McCarthy wanted to get a own on Biden, and maybe he did own him, you know, like Biden was like,
I'm not going to negotiate, and clearly Biden did. But when it came to the substance of the agreement, the Republicans don't seem like that actually agitated about the like discretionary non defense numbers over ten years, which is to me, potentially like the Trump influence on the party so interesting.
I mean, that is the weird thing about Trump right, And again, nobody is saying anything good about Trump here. The guy is trying to kill American democracy and working hard to do it. But it is interesting to me. You know, he does this populist rhetoric. So what he has said, you know, I mean again, is it true? You know, who knows, but he has been pretending to be pro social safety net.
There's this interesting coalitional element here that Trump has has, as you know, as a mechanism for sort of overtaking the Republican Party kind of had to make peace with some of its major players, including sort of the Paul Ryan wing. And so in the Trump administration there were all these people who were fanatically devoted to cutting this
part of the budget. And Trump, I think, despite all the anti democratic impulses and actions that you're accurately alluding to, Trump like kind of thought these guys were a little weird. Like he Trump is like a star billionaire playboy, Like he's not like devoted his life to lowering on specionary spending,
like he wants to know what's popular. And this like almost like Greek tragedy element to some of these like advisors around him who talk about Trump in these like highly idealized terms, and they worship Trump and then they spend like years trying to cut spending and Trump is like, you guys are weird. Like I know you love me,
but like I don't. Actually, I'm like, they're like, we give we must do this, and he's like, I'm going to like go to the golf course and like hit some long drives and like you guys can like scream about how mcmarthy sacrificed the budget and it's like he doesn't care.
Yeah, I mean he did want to crash the economy. I mean he said, don't make a deal. The impulse of Trump is. I mean, I was surprised they weren't. And again, you know, this deal has not passed yet, and if it doesn't pass, we're all completely fucked.
I mean, let's be honest.
But I was surprised that there weren't more people on the trumpy right who are like, let's just blow up the economy so that Trump gets elected in twenty four.
I think it is really surprised. I had the same reaction and it was not what I was anticipating. Like I thought, right now Trump would be like constantly like posting on his you know.
Website constantly truthing on his truth social.
It would be truthing about how McCarthy was like a rhino and the deal was terrible and everything. And I wonder if they have polling that it's like not good to like destroy the economy, like me, yeah, someone who said that.
It must be because there's that's the only way any of this is happening. And the polling I saw a show that Biden would get blamed for destroying the economy, but it must be that both of them will get blamed and that that's why they're doing it.
It is interesting because DeSantis is like out there saying that this is a bad deal and like trying to carve out a lane to the right of Trump on this. But like, do conservative voters really, like, are they really that worked up about like the baseline for like the CBO report? You know, it's just like I don't know, No, they don't.
Get shit about cutting spending.
I mean that's the thing that I mean, trump Ism has brought to bears that they don't care about the deficit.
The deficit is bullshit.
If it's a way to darve poor kids to keep them from having free breakfast, then they care about the deficit. But if it's going to deprive billionaires of tax cuts, then no way.
Yeah, or or you know, ensure that that billionaires don't face higher tax enforces. I yes, yes, talk about a Jille Trump might like, you know, it's so sleazy.
So let me ask you.
Now, there's going to be a lot of complaining on the right.
I mean, talk to me about Nancy Mace. She's very mad.
Yeah, she's the South Carolina woman, right, yeah.
I mean the people who are the maddest about this deal seem to be like the Chip Roy crew.
Though he's going to vote it through rules.
It sounds like the Tea Party crew, though some of them are on board.
I mean that's the thing that's like baffling about this.
And again perhaps we were too cynical, but like Jim Jordan supports it.
I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think a lot of people really did kind of underestimate Kevin McCarthy's ability to get it Jill done. I was just talking with someone about do you remember when Nancy Pelosi called.
Him a moron?
Yeah, he is a moron.
And then he printed the shirt the T shirts he sold t shirts on his website that said, like I'm a moron, We're owning this. I remember because Pelosi's staffed tweeded back like this is the first like Republican truth in advertising. But he like he seems to have like tamped down a lot of the rabble rousers in his caucus. And I think we should not discount the fact that if the dead ceiling deal got did not get done right, we would be looking at a ten to twenty percent
to climb the stock market. That happened even before the debt ceiling was breached eleven And yeah, remember Republicans like here all the time from business leaders. They thems tend to be more affluent, and they're highly attuned to the stock market. And CEOs did not want to see the stock market drop by fifteen percent again, which I think
is understandable. And so when we look at that at sort of the elements in play here, this is a big countervailing force all in the anti spending Republicans that that they if Jim Jordan can say to his you know, the right wing activist, we got a good deal that Bian didn't want to give us anything on, then he can you know, sort of vote for the deal and not have to, you know, have to handle large business interests yelling at him.
Well, the thing I was struck by was that it seems like McCarthy and we were all criticizing him, but it seems as if McCarthy has brought the right flank in and it had somehow been able to control them by making giving them a seat at the table.
I think that's right. I mean the fact that even the House Freeme Calucus members that we've spoken to in the last few days, they're not even like even the most right wing of them who are going to vote against this. And to be clear, we've known for months that he would lose thirty to thirty five votes right off the bat just by raising the debt ceiling. But there's a lot of voices and even they are not discussing deposing McCarthy, which is the threat that everyone thought
that they were going to make. So they've really put down their weapons here. And the sort of the crucial question has always been not the thirty most right wing members, but like sort of the next sixty, like where do they go? And by all indications, they are actually quite
comfortable with the deal. And I think it goes back to what we were just discussing, that, like, their voters are not that upset, and if they have to deal with business groups in their districts yelling at them to get this done, it's not ultimately that hard to vote, especially if Trump isn't like running on the sidelines, you know, jumping up and down.
Trying to get them primary.
Yeah.
But the other thing that's interesting is like Trump doesn't have and I think we've seen this. Trump does not have the power he used to have, even with the primary. Maybe in the Ruby Rads. If Trump tweeted about you like your life was a misery, you know, you would be like constant death threats for a month.
His base is not the same amount of mad that they used to be.
Yeah, that's interesting.
I mean it's a low bar, but.
I mean I don't know. The poll still suggests to me that he I know this is boring sort of pundit talk, but he's she's doing quite well.
I think they can't beat him.
But no, I think you're right that the air has gone out of the balloon.
Yeah.
I think when people go to jail because of stuff you've told them to do, they are slightly more hesitant to do stuff you told them to do.
Yeah, and maybe you know Congress has the same reaction with blowing up the world economy.
Right, I mean, so tell me what the timetable is now.
I think they're going to pass this thing on Wednesday, maybe Thursday, and then.
It goes to the Senate.
When I think Wednesday evening. I mean, these guys love nothing more than getting out of town as soon as possible, and frankly I fully support that.
I mean, they were out this weekend.
It's not like anybody stayed back in DC over the weekend.
I guess Noally, they might have to do two consecutive days of work in June.
They get so mad when you say that, even like the one you know, They're like, no, we do our district work.
I'm like, Okay, I simultaneously think that they are quite lazy, but I also think that I would hate it. Seems really miserable, like it would. Yeah, you're like one of the gazillion people who has like effectively no power. Almost certainly you like have to like lie to everyone all the time about what you actually think.
It's just like such a bad job.
Yeah, it just seems awful, like you can't like work from home whenever you feel like it unless you're you know, I guess you can, Diane.
It's time I got to get in trouble.
The people I've talked to have said that if it makes it to the House, it will make it through the Center.
Yeah, especially with Mitch on board. Yeah.
Yeah, As I was saying, it just sort of feels like a very anticlimactic end to all this drama. But you know, I think that's good. The story I'm working on now is that Biden has sort of teased the idea that he will after this is over, invoked the fourteenth Amendment. This is kind of what you were referring
to earlier. The White House had this fear that if they went the unilateral route during a crisis, then the debt issuance in violation of the debt ceiling would have been legally contested and still could have sparked a financial crisis.
Certainly true.
Yeah, Yeah, So what Biden is suggesting is maybe they will. What he said on Sunday, even though the remarks were kind of confusing, he sort of suggested that they can make that They're going to explore doing that even sort of absent to crisis, that maybe they can try to go forward with that when we're not on the brain. The problem with that approach is that courts might not take it up. There's no reason for a judicial the judicial branch to rule on something that's not a live issue.
Theoretical. Yeah.
Yeah, and so I will say, and I hope someone in timestamps system throws this back at me if I am still like spending my life covering this when he comes up again in two years, which you will, I will need to rethink some major.
Congratulations.
That's it, we're out of time.
Thank you.
That's perfect, all right, Thank you, guys.
No mo.
Jesse Cannon, Molly Jong Fast. Seems that Elon's up to no good because he thinks it's funny to own the libs.
Really interesting, and by interesting, I mean quite stupid. Elon Musk took away blue check verification on Twitter. That opened the door to a lot of impersonation, including parody accounts. There is an AOC parody accoun that said it would like to date Elon. Elon then responded with the fire emoji. I would like to never have to talk about Twitter again. Our moment of fuckery comes from our terrifying CEO of Twitter, Elon Musk, engaging with parody accounts and making it impossible
to tell who is real and who is fake. 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.