Eric Swalwell, Dan Nathan & Andrew Warren

Then we're gonna talk to Hillsborough County, Florida's state Attorney Andrew Warren about his recent dust up that got him suspended during one of the Governor de Santiss culture wars. But first we have the host of m K T Call on the tape podcast Okay computer podcast and it contributed to CNBC Fast Money, Dan Nathan. Welcome to Fast Politics, Dan Nathan, Molly John Fast. I mean, come on, murderous, murderous row of guests over the last couple of weeks in your new podcast here and I make the cut.

I really feel very very special in here. Well, I was saying we have to have Dan Nathan on because I was like, what the hell is going on? It was like every day when I was watched the public markets creator and also there's so many stories about the economy going on right now, and many of them conflict with each other. Can you start by giving us like a quick top line of what you're seeing. Yeah, no doubt about it. And I think you and I've talked

about this in the past before. I think a lot of the things that kind of think about as it relates to the economy and as it relates to their investments in the stock market are two very different things, and they're obviously very tied to each other, right, But I think over the last couple of years, I think all of us got very familiar with economic sort of issues, right as it related to the pandemic and all the

stimulus that kept the economy afloat. And what did that do It It kind of inflated the price of assets, right because interest rates went really low and money was really easy, and you know, anything that wasn't bolted down as far as that was investable went up. Well, here we are, we're the other side of that right now. And you know, inflation is something that the FED was really trying to get higher pre pandemic. They wanted to get it above two percent they're really worried about the

idea that technology is this massive deflationary force. Right. And then after the pandemic, after trillions of dollars of monetary and fiscal stimulus, I mean, just things went haywire, and prices and all sorts of goods and services just went a lot higher. And then when we had the war in Ukraine, when when Russia invaded Ukraine, it caused tremendous dislocation as far as energy supplies. And then on top of all these kind of broken supply chain issues that

we had from the pandemic. And then obviously, you know, two and a half years into the pandemic, you know, China is still locking down. So inflation, inflation, inflation, this is the thing that our central bank about a year ago decided they have to combat because it got to high single digit percentages and those are levels we have not seen since the early eighties. Now tying it into the stock market, well, the stock market a huge run. I want to stop you for one second, uh, inflation.

So we're seeing inflation going up, and that's caused by the money from the stimulus, the increase in gas prices and the increase in wheat prices from the Russia invasion of Ukraine. Yeah, but more importantly here in the US, you know, some of the issues that we had when we started thinking as energy as a point of national security or supply chains as a point of natural security. The whole idea of deglobalization is going to put upward pressure on wages here in the US as we reach

shore a lot of jobs. So that's also part of it. And when you think about you know, we we, you and I have talked about this this huge gap right between you know, those who have and those you know on the bottom side of the spectrum. This this income

inequality gap has just been widening and widening. It does it in periods of um, you know, easy money or so and so all of a a sudden though, we have low end workers, okay, who are getting increases in wages and they're really not keeping up with inflation right now.

But that is actually a real pressure point for a lot of US corporations right now because they've actually had the benefit of really cheap overseas labor or overseas or labor here in the US that's been really benefited by immigration.

And we also have a huge immigration problems so what you're saying there, I just want to like slow it down, and and for our for listeners is that actually this inflation ended up pushing up the wages of the sort of the kind of like working people wages, and so that actually was good, but it also made inflation worse. It made inflation words, and it also doesn't really do a lot for those low end workers who are now dealing with gas at the pump that's near four dollars. Right.

It's one thing to get a two dollar or a three dollar an hour raise, but if on average, to cost to get to your job has increased ramatically, the cost of food has increased dramatically. I mean, these are sorts of things they're just kind of maybe balancing themselves out.

So you know, again, I think when you think about what the Federal Reserve is trying to do by raising interest rates as fast as they have over the last six months or so, which is just, you know, the fastest in which they've raised three percentage points on the Fed funds since the early eighties, Okay, they're trying to kind of tamp down these prices and get them back into the mid single digits. As far as inflationary readings

right now. And but they also need to do really sadly, one of the big I guess goals of this whole process is to actually have that unemployment rate go up a bit, because the only way to kind of tamp down demand is actually have higher unemployment. So this is actually the real conundrum with this whole situation, right because

that makes labor cheaper if you have more unemployed people. Yes, and and so I mean basically employers have more leverage, which is one of the reasons why you know, we we know that we've had so many issues as far as low income wage earners over the last couple of decades because they just have had actually no leverage. So now what happens, well, I think there is a scenario, I mean, right now if you think about what's happened. You know, the FED his rays interest rates. We've seen

a lot of these inflationary inputs. They've come down over the last few months. You know, while gas at the pump is still for that dollars, it's still down from where it was the national average I think was about five. You know, we're seeing lumber, we're seeing some food prices, we're seeing shipping costs, all these things are coming down. So now the real question is is this tight monetary

policy gonna put the US economy in a recession? And that's really one of the biggest kind of issues of debate right now, and it's one of the reasons why the stock market is down about on the year because I think a lot of investors are worried. Yes, while they're anxious, because inflation for some businesses is good, for

others it's not. And if we just reach kind of a peak margin period where company were making the highest amount of money on the revenue that they were taking in, now all of a sudden that some of these areas of inflation are going to be sticky, like wages and some of these other things, you know, they're not going to be able to make the profits that they did. And if profits are less, okay, stock valuations should be lower. And that's what's happened in the stock market this year.

Can you explain to us what businesses do well in an inflation, Well, it's kind of interesting. I mean, when you think about companies that for the most part, who have pricing power, right, so when you think about, um, you know a company who has the ability to push through the cost of higher inflation to their customers, whether they be consumers or whether they be enterprises. And there's no shortages, but for the most part, most companies don't don't do well in them. If you think of like

the auto industry. Remember we heard coming out of the pandemic that there was just such short supply of new cars, which is one of the reasons why use part prices were going through the roof, and some instances you saw use cars prices more than new cars because he didn't have um At says to new cars, they didn't have the parts, they didn't have the supply to right. That was the chips, right, right, because the chips and everything

like that. Now we've gone to a situation where there's big inventories of a lot of these things that a lot of consumers were pining away for. But now that we have, you know, a weaker economy, you know, there's probably less demand for some of these products. And so I guess the point I would just make is that the stock markets rolled over. The housing market was something that the FED was also targeting. That's much softer right now because of the raised interest rates, because money is

more expensive. Exactly. We see the thirty year mortgage above seven percent for the first time in a very long time. If you just do the math, that's more than double from over a year ago. And if you think about if you're gonna like think about buying a new home right now, think about what the differential is year over year and the cost to do that, it's much higher. Even though the cost of homes are down. And that's also happening at time, it's causing it's causing rents to

go higher. Right. So a large part of America's they rent their homes, right, and so because this scarcity of rental properties, So that's also you know, kind of a byproduct of this inflation too. Just back to home prices for a minute. Lower home prices may actually ultimately be good, right because there were so many people who were priced

out of these housing markets. Yeah, there will be. I mean, there's been this big demographic shift and we saw it really take hold during the pandemic, where younger people were interested in moving out of big cities and moving into suburban areas and buying homes. And the fact of the matter is, we just don't have enough supply for them, so net net, even as the prices come in, there's gonna be this weird supplied demand dynamic that's kind of

kind of linger for a while. And that is actually one of the kind of knock on effects from the financial crisis, which was rooted in the housing market. We just don't have enough homes for the sort of demand that we're gonna see outside the major cities. So there's just a lot of things right here, you know, Molly, I've been looking at the markets for twenty five years, and I will tell you that the sort of cross currents or the headwinds economic growth have never been higher

right now. That being said, you know, we are coming off all time highs in the stock market, all time highs in the housing market, all time highs in certain wages as you kind of read them. So you know, consumer balance sheets for now are in pretty good shape, you know, coming out of the pandemic. So it doesn't feel like we're about to go into a major crisis like we had an oh eight or oh nine or something even back to you know, O one oh two.

But I think the writings on the wall where it could happen, we just don't kind of know right now. But you also don't know you're in a recession until we're already in it. Yeah, And I guess there's a couple of ways to think about what a recession looks like. The technical definition was two consecutive negative quarters of gross domestic product, And so to most people listening to that, that doesn't mean anything, right, it just means kind of

like two consecutive chords of slower growth. What really happens most people, most consumers feel like they're in a recession when they lose their jobs or there's downward pressure on their wages. And then when the cost of doing things like we just talked about, whether it be buying a home, running a home, filling your your your car with a tang of gas, you know, when when that becomes difficult putting food on your table, that's when people feel like

they're in a recession. Now, I look at this through the lens of the stock market, and most of the time the stock market will discount a recession coming. And so that's what it's starting to do right now. And really, once you have all of these people are just perma bullish, whether it be on the economy or the markets. When they kind of throw in the towel and say I was wrong and we're going to have a recession, and

they get really negative. That's usually when stock markets bottom, right, So you think the stock market is sometimes an indicator.

Stock market is this kind of discounting mechanism right now, So if I think back to the last two times, not including the early recession and bear market that we had during the pandemic, because again let's just exclude that because all the unusual activity and when you think about how much stimulus both monetary and fiscal stowing aut But back to the financial crisis, the SMP five hundred, which is the major you know, measure of stocks here in

the US, that declined fifty seven percent from its highs in two thousand and seven November to its lows in early March two thousand and nine. And then if you go back to the post dot com crisis that we had there and it wasn't really a crisis, it was a recession, and there's a whole host of other things with nine eleven, and there's a lot of corporate mouthfeasans the SMP five hold hundreds sold off fifty percent. So here we are right now, we're down twenty five percent.

It seems very likely that the US will be a recession at some point in the next out of six to nine to twelve months or so. Europe is probably already in a recession. China has been in a recession. So I guess the point is is like, if the average stock market declined during recession has been about thirty five percent over the last call it fifty years or so, and the last two major ones we've been down more than fifty percent, I'd say down twenty percent with a

very high likelihood of a recession in the next year. Okay, the stock markets not done going down. This is the point that you see inflation in Europe, in England it seems like it's probably the worst of anywhere in the world. Political people on the right are very mad at Biden. A bad inflation. Say Biden wasn't he just had one focus was which was inflation. What could he do that he's not doing well? Let's just say this. I mean,

they actually have been very proactive. So going back to November, you know when oil prices started to go up precipitously, and again this is before Russia invaded Ukraine. They tapped what they called the spr on the the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and that's a reserve that the US has um for a whole host of reasons, of of gas oil that they stockpiled. They did that in an effort to kind of put some downward pressure on gas prices. You know,

he did something very controversial earlier this year. I guess in the summer he went over to see MBS and Saudi Arabia. What did he do that He fist bumped and he got kind of spit in the eye afterwards, and I think they recognized that was a huge mistake for a whole host of reasons. Um And then obviously the Inflation Reduction Act, that's something that they worked very hard to do. Very debatable whether it actually anytime soon

will actually reduce inflation. But I guess the point is they're being very proactive when I think about what the messaging might be into the midterms. Okay, obviously he's not on the ballot, but this is a huge issue. All the polling that I've seen of late, you know, months ago there was row and right now it's clearly inflation, right, and so can they thread the needle by saying hey, listen, we are battling inflation. This is not our fault, and

it really isn't. You can say that they know the Federal Reserve was basically a little too overzealous for too long on their easy money policy. But if you think about the geopolitical issues that have actually been a huge input to inflation, if they are able to say, hey, listen, we're getting this under control. Look here, here, and here, and the other thing it's really good is that we've actually avoided seeing unemployment rate go up meaningfully anything. It's

gone down. It's back at three point five percent, which was a forty year low, which is what we hit right before the pandemic, before it went up to high single digits or so. So that might be a really good message for them to articulate. Um, and it's an honest message, to be very frank, it's not one that needs to be spun. So what do you do about MBS right, because we're seeing opec is gonna cut production, that's gonna raise oil prices again. I mean, there's clearly

a relationship between the Saudis and Jared. I mean, clearly MBS is as much as a person can be uh, you know, as much as the leader of Saudi Arabia can be a Republican, he sounds like he is. I mean, what should the Biden administration do here? Well, I think they should take a much harder stance. I mean, I personally know and cares what I have to think about geo politics. But I thought it was you're here now.

But I thought it was a huge mistake that he went over there, especially given you know, what we know of what he did to just kind of his own people, what he does to his own people, and um, you know just kind of the human humanitarian is used that they have over there. But you know, again, I mean

that that was just a d percent leverage. I mean, you we might look back and say that was a bad of of a kind of mishap, as you know, Trump going over and meeting Kim john In in the d m Z. You know, I mean, I really do think if you think of the balance of power and how important energy has become as a matter of national security, I mean, what happened in the last few months might be something we you know, we look back for a very long time and just say very clearly, these are

not our friends, right American government still gives Saudi Arabia money and yet it relies on OPAK. There are things that this government could do well, and they're starting to do it. I mean, when you think about you know that this administration started with the idea that they were going to be cutting you know, fossil fuel production here um in a massive, massive way, and they basically changed their tune and I think the idea again going back

to energy as a means of national security. I mean, this is a theme that you know, Molly and our

adult lives, going back to what work kid. You know, this is something that's gone on and on and on, and so I guess at the end of the day, you know, you keep hearing this term E s G. That was just a kind of really popular way for people to kind of look at what we were doing as relates to fossil fuels and say we're not going to invest in those sorts of strategies and just became something a very easy political sort of flagged to wave.

And I think what this administration has clearly done so far is at least you know, taking that flag, you know, out of the ground here and thought about different ways where we can produce um, you know, energy in a way where we're less relying on the sound and open I mean, do you think that that's in the future. Yeah, I do. I mean I think that you know, at the end of the day, I think what the situation

that Europe is in right now. I mean, the fact that they were so reliant for natural gas on the Russians, given everything that we know of Putin's strategy as it relates to, you know, kind of reassembling or cobbling back together um, the Soviet Union. It's just very interesting that Germany, when the largest economies in the world, was so dependent on them, and we're gonna be we could be in

a global recession because of that dependence. And you know, we have the ability here in the US to kind of pull a lot of gas out of the ground here. And again I don't know a whole heck of a lot about this, and then the politics are very complicated here, but I mean there's probably a much more measured approach to this. And then again you're hearing people from all sides talk about nuclear energy as also a source going forward. So again I think we're going to get out of

this situation here. Maybe without a war, a broader war than which just exists with Russia and Ukraine, and it's gonna caused the rest of the world to kind of rethink, you know, our energy needs. Thank you so much, Dan, this was super interesting, all right, Molly, thanks a lot, and grats on Fast Politics than Eric Swallwell represents California's fifteenth congressional district. Welcome too, Fast Politics, Eric Swawell, Guys, nice to see all game. Very excited to have you

on the new podcast. Talk to me about these mid terms. What is your anxiety, what are you seeing? What does the landscape look like from out there in California? Yeah, it's uh thirty jump balls all over the country, right, that's basically where we're at. We've got to win about eighty six percent of them to keep the House. That's doable.

It's doable because we've got terrific candidates defending our seats, and we've got candidates who are going after you know, some of the most vulnerable and just frankly awful Republican colleagues of mine. So I actually, you know, if you would have told me a year ago, this is a position we would have been in. You know, most people wouldn't have believed it, and I would have been a

little skeptical. But that's where we're got, you know, thirty ish days out jump ball scenario, we can keep both houses. What would our listeners need to I mean, where should they focus? I have been getting lots of emails from people like what should I do? How can I help to tell them? Yeah, well, my organization is called Remedy

and so remedy pack dot com. We've got about ten seats to senators that were helping to Senate candidates were helping Mandella Barnes and Valve Demming's and then a bunch of House candidates. A race I really really enjoy droid watching it develop is in Palm Springs. It's a new seat where a thirty year Republican incumbent Ken Calvert has moved to hasn't represented much of it. As you know, it's got the largest LGBT concentrated voting base in the country.

And even when it had Republicans, they had someone who would vote with their interests. And now we have Will Rawlins as our candidate. A federal prosecutor Boscuy to January six cases from the community. He's gay, he knows those issues, and he's running against Ken Calvert, who you know his voted against allowing days to serve in the military. Uh, you know, a co sponsor of the Defensive Marriage Act back in the nineties and has made millions of dollars

since he went into office. You know, Will, I think has done a good job of highlighting what he's been called. Calvertsman called the most corrupt member of Congress. So that is a Trump plus one district, meaning as constituted, Trump would have won it by one point, and that is one that we absolutely can win and put in our call. How is he corrupt? So I will lay this out for you, but he has made nearly twenty plus million dollars while in office while voting on projects that affected

his financial interests. Some of Will's ads I think so effectively laid us out. But also I think if you look at his record of the amount of money he has taken in his campaign from oil and gas industry, from pharmaceutical industry, and then votes against price gouging. Uh, you know when it comes to gas prices, votes against the Inflation Reduction Act, which would lower the costs of prescription drugs. Will really make a great case of whether you know it's to benefit his campaign or to benefit

his pocketbook. Calvert is doing a lot better. His constituents are doing a lot worse. And in about thirty days there's going to be a choice for the people in that part of California. You've hit on a subject that is near and dear to my heart. Huge percentage of American people believe that members of Congress should not trade stocks or their spouses. Can you talk to me. I know they were like several bills in the works and a lot of controversy. Can you catch us up to

where we are on that. Yeah, we should have a stock fan for members of Congress, for our spouses, for our any dependent you know, family members. I don't own any individual stocks, and I don't believe my colleagues should. Some of the arguments against having this legislation would be that, you know, it's already illegal to insider trade, and so, you know, why does Congress need you know, a law that would prevent them from doing something that the law

already says you can't do. I just happen to believe if the perception among the public is that you know, we are using inside info to improve our own financial standing, then we should go above and beyond to show the public that we're not doing that. And and even if it is illegal, why not just make it a little more difficult for a member of Congress to do that?

As I said in the In the Calvert Rawlins race, Rawlins has made a compelling case about projects that Calvert has voted on that he has had a direct financial interest in. And Calvert, despite making the same amount of money for the last you know, fifteen years, as far as his public sorry, has seen his overall wealth go up. And and that diminishes the public's trust in its nations leaders. And if we can do something about that, I think

we should. Yeah, me too, man, I get that. It's it's easy to look at the handful of Democrats that you know have opposed this and stay like, why can't you all pass this? I know there's nuances in the bills. You know it's not the nuances, I mean, there's always nuances. But the Republicans are delivering zero votes for us something like It's it's not as Kevin McCarthy is saying, Hey, guys,

I've got votes for you on this. Just passet No that's not the case at all that they will deliver you know, a goose egg as far as like what you know we're going to get from them. So and that's the same in the Senate. So we with a plus four majority in the House, you know, we have to get to eighteen pretty point and then it would be nice if some Republicans are vote for us. But we don't have any Republicans saying, hey, just put this vote up and you know, I'll give you what you

need to get it across the goal line. Certainly not. But here's a question. I mean, the Republicans have gone like anti everything. Why do you think as a Democrat we're not seeing more Democrats campaigning on this idea that like we have. I mean, I was just writing about this a minute ago, so I can pull this up. But we have, you know, election deniers running in forty eight out of fifties states. We have a central tenant of the Republican platform now, is that you know, if

our guy doesn't win, the election wasn't fair. I mean, why do you think Democrats aren't running on that More of state and federal candidates on the Republican side are election deniers and um, I have said from the beginning of the cycle, you know, since January six, that you know, this could be the last renfair election we see and our democracies like that, like that that that's what's at stake when you look at the candidates up and down

the ballot. The secretaries of state of Nevada and Arizona, the candidates inside. One of them over the weekend said if I'm elected, I'm going to work with other secretaries of state to make sure that we need yeah and that yeah, and that Donald Trumps president. They're they're telling us what they're going to do. And and so I think candidates getting this catch twenty two position where they think, well, you know, voters aren't talking about this, so let's talk

to voters about what they're talking about. But then when it happens, we'll go back and say, why didn't we talk about it enough. I think voters care about what we as leaders tell them. They need, you know, to care about like that. That's what leadership is is to show voters, you know, what the issues are that connect all of us and what the solutions are, you know, to to fix them. It's not to just um, you know, take a straw pole and then whatever the issue of

the day is, it's popular in the straw pole. You know, we orient your campaign towards that. So I do believe that, you know, we have seen an increase in the number of people who rank democracy as one of their top issues. It's it's hanging around you know, ten to twelve and most poles, which puts it at like the third issue. By the way, so you have economy, abortion rights, and

democracy is the top three issues. And so I think that's because many of us have tried to escalate that, you know, as an issue, and and so um we have to lean into that. And and to see people say with Mandela Barnes, oh, you know, he needs to stop talking about Ron Johnson's role in January six, like that's so maddening. Are people really saying that? Because that is yeah, oh yeah, that that say, that's a hot take out there is that Barnes is you know, focusing

too much on Johnson. Uh. And I think if you if you look at the Barnes campaign, it's very clinical. He's focusing on issues of corruption relating to Johnson, similar to Colbert taking votes that benefits his own financial issuers. But also on his role you know, pre and post January six, because that goes to the core issue that we all care about, which is being able to vote

and have that vote counted. Right. I think some of it is because when Biden gave that pro democracy speech, Republicans lost their minds and they compared him to Hitler. Do you think that was one of the reasons, like they sort of were able to get Democrats to tamp down. I don't know if it's why Democrats are tamping down, but the public is camping up right since that speech. Democracy as an issue, as I said, stays in you know, low double digits as far as what people rank as

what concerns them the most. And by the way, I just think it's so comical that they say, you know, on Monday, stop calling us fascists, and then on Friday, uh, you know, they stand in front of Hitler's car and ask people for money, like, stop calling us fascists. But I'm just I want to like dig into this idea for a second. It does seem like Republicans are better at getting Democrats on the defensive. Right, all of a sudden, Biden is defending a speech he gave where Trump is saying,

you know, he doesn't want to do democracy anymore. I mean, do you think that Democrats should sort of be on the offensive more? Do you think, I mean, is this fundamentally a messaging problem? You know, this is something I think about all the time. Yes, we need to play on their side of the field more. And also they are brilliant at inventing issues, right we joke now it's kind of a phrase. You know, they'll the caravan an issue and then we're we find ourselves on you know, defense.

But I actually think, you know, there is a way to intercept you know, their plays, use it against them. And last week, Ilhan Omar and I did just that, you know. We Ilhan texted me a story about Bakersfield that it's the fifth highest per capita like murder capital in the United States, which also happens to be the largest city in Kevin McCarthy's district. And this is bullshit, Like,

we take all these hits from this guy. He represents fifth largest murder capital in America and votes against you know, every funding bill that we put up for the police. And I was like, yeah, that is bullshit. And so the two of us put together an ad, you know, hitting McCarthy and and kind of concluded the ad that you know you're not pro cop you're pro coup, and that you know, immediately within forty eight hours had over

a million views just on Twitter. And so I think that's where you can you know, intercept as I said, intercept the past, you know, and uh, you know, do a political pick six like and that's what we did, and that's what we need to do more. Uh yeah, that does seem to me, is like and I mean, for example, like the thing that I'm so struck by is just how good Republicans are at repeating a lie again and again again. Yes, going back to the football analogy. They do not want to have us on their end

of the field. On abortion rights, I mean, they're they're terrified of that as an issue. They're doing anything they can, you know, to distract from us, you know, running that issue against them, because they know just how devastating it is.

And and I've heard in the plural of anecdote is not data, but the number of Republican women all over the country who I have heard from from either directly or family members of their saying that they are voting for a Democrat this election because of that issue, Like they know it's devastating and there's they have no good

answer for it. And and I think what's so telling to me on that issue, which is why they're so desperate to invent issues and then put us on defense, is all of these rallies that Donald Trump has had. The guy loves, loves, loves to take credit for everything. The one thing he does not take credit for is putting three justices on the court to take away a woman's right to have an abortion. He doesn't said about that issue at all because he knows it's unpopular. Yeah, yeah, Yeah,

he's the guy. He's not He's not stupid when it comes to, you know, public opinion. He knows how to exploit grievances, and he knows that this is a major, major issue for women. And he has for the first time in his life, not taking credit for something that he's responsible for. Yeah, all this stuff about the impeachment coming out most recently, there was another piece. There's a book on the impeachment that just came out from Rachel Bad. Do you think that if it had been done differently, uh,

it might have worked. I mean, do you have regrets about the impeachment. Do you wish that they had called witnesses for the second impeachment? What the January six Commission has done, I think reaffirms the attacked we were trying to take his managers, which was to get in front of witnesses. I get the pressures of the Senate to pass the rescue plan to confirm the president's appointees. What the Bade piece exposes is that we were ready to

go as managers. We had, you know, witnesses who we wanted to call, and you know that the Senate, you know, is the jury. They ultimately we're going to be able to decide what direction the trial went in, and they didn't go the direction we wanted. Thank god the January six Commission was created because that information has come out. Do I believe that we would have been able to get, you know, the ten more votes that we would have needed.

I don't know. I'd stand by our decision at that point to want to proceed with witnesses, and you know, it was frustrating to the Senate, you know, wanted to go in a different direction. But I think we've ended up at the same point as far as what we've learned because of the good work of the Commission, and I hope that weighs on people in the next As I said, thirty ish days when I think about what kind of country they want to live in. Eric swallwell,

thank you so much. Donald Trump goes to jail, yes or now, oh yeah, come on, yes, We're gonna say okay, all right, I'll hold you to it. Andrew Warren is a state attorney for Hillsborough County, Florida. Welcome to Fast Politics, Andrew, thanks so much for having me. You'll find yourself in an interesting situation that I can't imagine you would have thought you would be in. Can you explain to us what happened to you in August four? Yeah, that's definitely

a situation I never thought i'd find myself in. I was at work doing my job. I was actually in the grand jury presiding over the indictment of two thirty nine year old cold cases that we had solved with the help of local law enforcement, and all of a sudden I got an email, tell us what your job is because not all of our listeners now, of course, Well, I'm the state attorney in Hillsboro County. Florida, which is where Tampa is. And that's basically that's the district attorney

as it's called in a lot of other places. So I'm the local elected prosecutor for a jurisdiction of one point five million people. We have an office of three hundred staff, a hundred thirty prosecutors, and we handled about sixty to seventy thousand cases a year. Okay, so go on, so tell me about this email. So I get this email that mentioned suspension. I don't really know what it is.

I step outside of the Grand Jury and I walk up to my office and within two minutes there was an armed deputy from the sheriff's office and someone from the Governor's office. They knocked on the door. They handed me what they said was an order of suspension, and I was told I needed to leave the office right away. Did you even know what this was about? I had no idea what it was about. I was completely blindsided. They didn't give me time to read it. I asked if I could have a moment to look at it,

if I could understand. They said, nope, you there's an order that you need to evacuate the building immediately. You're no longer serving the state attorney. You're hereby suspended. You need to go. And so, you know, I've worked through law enforcement throughout my career. I have tremendous respect for them. I know that's not the time to argue when a deputy is telling you you need to do something. I just said, okay, I didn't even have time to grab my keys. I just sort of grabbed my bag and

was escorted out of the building. Okay. And then what happened, Well, the deputy was nice enough to ask me if I needed a ride home because they took my car keys away, and I said, no, I'm not going home. Wait, why did they take your car keys away? I have a state car that I drive to work, and so they told me how I'm not allowed to have the car anymore. I mean they my house key was on it. Like I didn't even have time to get my house key. That's how That's how fast this was. And no time

to talk with my staff, no time to understand. Again, they didn't even give me time to read the order. I just had to take their word for it that I had been suspended. So I ended up. You know, everyone asked like, well, what did you do right away.

I mean, honestly, the first thing I did is I wanted to make sure that this grand jury was still proceeding, because I had promised the family members the two victims who had been murdered back in the early eighties that I would be there to make sure everything went smoothly and to deliver the news to them that their loved one's killers had finally been indicted and we're being held accountable. Jesus. Okay,

So what happened next, Well, I spent the day doing that. UM. I ended up making a phone call to my wife. I think it's like my third or fourth call. I said, I've been suspended. I've been kicked out of the office. She said, you're kidding. I said, I'm not kidding. I gotta go. And you still didn't know why. I still don't know why. I had not seen the order. They turns out they gave me an incomplete copy of the executive orders suspending me. I didn't end up looking at

it until much later that day. But this happened at maybe ten thirty eleven in the morning, and for the next few hours I was making sure that the grand jury process was going forward and Ultimately the indictment was returned. I had a chance to meet in person with those victims families, as I'd promised to do, and to deliver the good news to him, and then we had a press conference scheduled to announce that we had charged these two people, and we went forward with the press conference.

But you were suspended at this point, still I was suspended. I still didn't even know what the basis of the suspension was. I mean, I really knew nothing. Did you suspect that it had something to do with politics or now? It wasn't until that afternoon where I really had a chance to look at the suspension the executive order. And the reason why I was suspended was because I had

spoken up on abortion rights and for transgender rights. And those are two issues that Rhonda Santis, you know, those are his two of his favorite cultural ward divisive issues, and he and I don't see idea eye on those, and so that's the reason why I was suspended. Here's a question for you. You aren't elected. You were put in your job by voters. That's right. I was elected twice. I was elected in twenty six and again in so

it's really strange and frankly dangerous. The idea that the governor can remove someone from office or you know, suspend and then hope to remove permanently someone from office who has been elected by the voters. This is the crazy thing, right. I have two young children, Like my eight year old is saying, but but you've been elected, right. That's how democracy works, or at least that's how it's supposed to work. So explain to me in your district, the state attorney

is elected, right, that's right. And has this ever happened where governor has removed a state attorney for not you know, going along with his culture war stuff. No, I think you have to go back like fifty sixty eighty years or something, desegregating schools or something. Yeah, it was something about like a state attorney refused to wasn't enforcing like gambling laws during prohibition or something. I don't know the

full history of it. What I do know is that the state constitution gives very limited power to the government to suspend an elected official, and it's really used when someone's committed a crime or when someone's been incapacitated, like if you know, God forbid, someone had a stroke and they they're just not mentally capable of doing the job anymore. So you would say this is really crossing a room

upon Oh absolutely. I mean I'm a Democrat, I'm elected as a Democrat and a partisan race the run to centsus is obviously a Republican But regardless of what party you belong to or who you vote for, I mean, the sacred trust of our democracy is that your vote matters, and no elected official has the right to throw your vote.

So for an elected official of either party to throw out someone because they disagree with how they're doing their job or they disagree with their political philosophy, that's just this full frontal attack on our democracy that should outrage everybody. So now explain to me what you're doing now, I mean what, there probably aren't that many paths for you.

They're not. So the way it's supposed to work is if it was a lawful suspension, that is, if the governor was within his power to suspend me, it would go to the Florida Senate and they would decide whether you know, to remove me from office based on the facts alleged. But here the problem is that the governor doesn't have the power to do this. So we filed a lawsuit in federal court and that case is now

set for trial at the end of November. Basically, we have alleged that the governor violated my First Amendment rights by retaliating against me for speaking out, and more importantly, for violating the rights of the voters to have the elected official that they chose, that they elected in a free and fair election. The governor tried to have the suit thrown out, saying that you know I work for him and that he can remove me, and the judge said,

not so fast. My friend andrews an elected official. He works of the voters, and now let's go to trial because we want to make sure that the governor's motivation was not political. But we know it was political. Well, it certainly looks political. Our position is that it's political. The judge is doing what judges do. He's waiting to eather all the facts. We had an initial argument in

the court a few weeks ago. We had asked to be I had asked to be reinstated before the end of the trial like an expedited relief, saying hey, judge, we're gonna win on this. And so there's a real harm to me and my constituents. So let's go ahead and put me back until the case gets finished. And the judge said, well, we want to make sure we

get this right once and for all. So, you know, as much as I would have liked to have have been reinstated at that at that preliminary stage, the reality is that going to trial as a victory for the truth. Because now a federal judge has ruled that De Santis has to come into court to explain under oath how

my suspension didn't break the law. He has to come in under penalty of perjury and show it wasn't political, it didn't violate my First Amendment rights, and it didn't violate the voters rights to have the state attorney that they elected. A lot of Republicans have shopped to Santras as Trump for people who can't stomach Trump. It's adds to me from your experience that he's almost more dangerous

than Trump. Well, he's certainly done some things that have raised eyebrows, and you know, raised questions and met the legality of them. Sure. So, Well, first of all, the most recent stunt, you know, with sending migrants to Martha's vineyards outside observers have pointed out that those flights may have been illegal, that the migrants were duped into it. There was a question of whether he used the state funds that had been authorized legally. Yeah, he put aside

twelve million dollars, right, that's right. Yeah, I mean keep in mind, this is twelve million dollars that could have been spent improving schools, or investing in small businesses, or fixing the broken insurance market with Florida. I mean, we did recently have a devastating hurricane here. Uh, but instead the governor chose to spend that money on a you know,

a political stunt. And the governor's championed the other laws that have been held unconstitutional, from cracking down on social media because you know, he felt like they're biased, which was held to be a violation of First Amendment rights too, you know, us ban on teaching you know, true history in American schools and instead having to teach certain propaganda. There have been these laws that he's passed which have come under scrutinies, several of which have been held to

be unconstitutional. So this is just one of the more recent actions that the governor has taken, which certainly looks and smells like a political stunt so that he can go on the stump in other states, which is exactly what he's done, you know, brag about how he he

threw out this, you know, crazy radical prosecutor. Though anyone in my county, which is a very purple county, will tell you that I'm a pragmatist, that I've been a moderate, that we've done a great job here and actually reducing crime. But unfortunately, in the world in which the Santis operates, you know, truth doesn't matter very much. You just go out and say what you want to say because you're on Fox News or at a campaign rally where you

know you're not beholding to the truth. You're in Florida right now, and you have that as a sort of you know something that the rest of us in the national media don't have. I mean, so you're watching this in real time clearly with the Santa's he like Trump, he doesn't know anything, right, I mean, but just Santa's like, he certainly knows that you can't. I mean a lot of this stuff, Like he's pretty smart. What's happening in Florida? Do you think that this is sort of he thinks

will get caught eventually or now. It's a great question. I don't think it's so much whether he thinks. I don't think he cares. Right, he champions a law, it gets thrown out by the court is unconstitutional, and he's still he still goes and brags about it. Look at what we did, right, They passed a law about cracking down on riots that you know, even law enforcement here said the thing doesn't this law doesn't do anything. It's

just empty rhetoric. And there was a legal challenge filed, and the governor's attorneys and go into court and say, judge, this law doesn't really do anything. We admit it doesn't change the law very much. But the but de Santis goes and talks about it like it's the greatest law in the history of the world. Right, So does he care that laws he champions gets held to be unconstitutional. No, because he just goes and brags about passing them anyway.

I mean, but it leads to a bigger question, which is, do you think most of this is performantive? It is, it's it's performance art. I mean, so much of our politics now has become this ridiculous and dangerous political theater. And and de Santis has made one thing very clear. I mean it don't disagree with him, or he'll use his office to punish you. Keep in money. He went after Disney, then he went after the Special Olympics, Then he went after teachers based on what they're teaching in

the classroom. Now he's going after a public servant. He's even targeted law enforcement with regards to the moral lago. I mean, so he talks so much about the frue state of Florida, but the reality is it doesn't feel very free unless you agree with everything he says. How much accountability can there be for a rogue governor like this, Well,

it depends what he's doing. Right. There's accountability in the fact that you can challenge laws that have been passed as unconstitutional, and that's been done in some of those laws, as I mentioned, have been thrown out. There's accountability when we sue him for this. I mean, we are holding him accountable for violating the constitutional rights of one point five million Floridians, and we're confident that we're gonna win in court. We have to go through the process, of course,

but this is how you hold someone accountable. You don't let them just get away with trampling on people's rights and talk about how they're defending rights. I mean, that's something out of it. It's so Orwellian where he's standing up and saying freedom, freedom, freedom, we're protecting people's freedom, while he's taking away people's freedom of speech, their freedom to vote, their freedom to learn. I mean he's attacking the freedom of businesses to do what those businesses think

it's best for their consumers. That there are a lot of freedoms that he's talks about, but the words, the actions don't live up to the words. Florida is a fascinating adventure for Democrats. I'm old enough to remember when Florida really was a swing state. What the fund is

happening over there? Excuse my language, Well, I do think Florida still a swing state, and the Republicans have held power in the statewide elections, you know, in the state government here for you know, a while, and they end up strengthening their grip on it through redistricting and campaign finance laws or lack of them don't really help, and

they make matters worse. You know, Florida like the rest of our country has become more polarized, and so you have uh, you know, candidates from both sides moving to the extremes and primaries. But the reality is that even though Republicans keep winning in the state of Florida, the recent elections have been close. You know, just sentis one in eight by like half a percent, and Rick Scott defeated Bill Nelson for the Senator race by even less

than that, and so the races have been close. I think it's important for you know, Democrats and frankly, any candidate to give voters a vision of how they're going to improve their lives. What what are we going to do to actually help people, to improve the economy, to improve our schools, to keep our neighborhood safe, to help address healthcare issues. I mean, this are what voters want

to know about. That they don't care about the culture war fights and you know, the politicking and partisanship you see on cable news. The problem is the parties have just focused so much on these fights, and the Republicans have become so good at it that they get people to ignore the kitchen table issues that really matter and instead focus on you know, the shiny object in the room. The we're owning the Libs by sending migrants to Martha's vineyard.

We suspended the prosecute. I mean, these the things that don't help anyone in our state. They undermine democracy, they violate fundamental American values, but yet they appeal to a plurality of people who are voting and determining the course of elections. Do you think that there's problems that Democrats are having at the party level? Well, I think that the party. Yeah, in Florida, the local I mean, can you speak to that for a minute, yes, I mean,

the party infrastructure here is in need of improvement. I've heard that from a lot of people, and I would love you just to talk because our listeners are quite interested in that kind of thing. Well, it's no secret here. You know, the Republicans have done a really good job of organizing, motivating, raising money. And that's what the core of local politics is about, right, I mean, you you show a vision for people, you organize, you get people

to turn out to vote. And look, Republicans have been very good about that in the state of Florida. Democrats haven't done it as well. Now they've brought in a new party CHA in recent years, they're raising money, they're really focused on uh core issues. Obviously, women's rights, healthcare, reproductive rights has become a huge issue over the past year.

It's something that's turning out voters, and you know, we hope to see that it turns out people who are you know, really care about the attack on those freedoms. But as I said a moment ago, you know, candidates and parties have to show a vision for the future, and Democrats have to continue to show that they are the party of the people or even the party of democracy, right,

the Party of democracy absolutely. But you know, it's interesting that a minimum wage constitutional amendment passed in the state of Florida. In raising the minimum wage has been a staple of Democratic policy for a generation, and that had to pass by I believe sixty percent of the vote in Florida, and it did. But so while two thirds of the state are voting for a core Democratic policy issue, they voted Republican, you know, Donald Trump on the state

by a couple of points. So there's a disconnect between the policies that people support and the parties that they're voting for, which just shows that Democrats have to do a better job of showing that they're the one they're the party that has supported these policies for years. Yeah, that is very, very true. And it's funny because I

think about that all the time. Whatever. I was sitting next to someone on the airplane and he was complaining about wokeism, and I said, do you think it's fair that if you get cancer you could end up in hundreds of thousands of dollars of dad? And he was like, no, of course that's not fair. And I was like, uh, And so I mean, it certainly is a problem that Democrats find themselves in where they're not able to, you know, let these voters know that that's what they're trying to

fight for. Um, thank you so much, Andrew. This was totally interesting, Molly, Thanks so much for having me on, Molly John Fast. Yes, he can in. You know, the Internet is always confusing, but I feel like it's a little more confusing today. So this is an interesting case. And they've done this before. So the Daily Mail, you may know it as it's a sort of it's not owned by Rupert Murdoch, but it feels like it could be. They released a comment can I tell you why I

think that that that that's not accurate. The Daily Mail works hard like all others other properties, no one puts out more content than them. The Daily Mail certainly does put out a lot of content. So they have recently released a two thousand eighteen voicemail. Now, by the way, I just want to point out this is would not be the first time that a British newspaper has gotten

in trouble for phone hacking. Right, well, you're listening to this voicemail, perhaps you would like to think about the other times in which, for example, Rupert Murdoch got in trouble for hacking. I'm not saying this is hacked. I'm sure that Joe Biden just sent them a voicemail of something he left to his son Hunter. But I'm just saying, like, this is not the first time the Brits have had trouble with this. I'm going to read you the text of it. It's Dad, I called to tell you I

love you. I love you more than the whole world. Pal, you gotta get some help. I don't know what to do. I know you don't either. So this is meant to be a dunk on Joe Biden for loving his son. I don't know. I mean again, like okay, I mean yeah, that's terrible. No, I don't want a president who loves his son. You know, you know what they've accused us of having Trump to rage. Would you think this is

something to attack? You're really showing your whole ass. It's so interesting because it's like the Republicans are so good at messaging, right. They have a whole group of people who think that their Republicans are going to do great things for them despite all evidence of the contrary. And yet somehow they don't understand that loving your drug addicted child is not something that people consider to be a

bad quality and presidential candidate anyway. So they get a hearty fuck you fucking fuccory of funck is um and I hope that they all get in trouble for this because if they're hacking voicemail, which again we don't know what they're doing here. I'm not even gonna we don't know, but whatever it is, like, however they got this, you know, not great. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to your 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.