Eric Swalwell, Jeet Heer & Alex Theodoridis

But first we have the host of the time of Monsters, the Nation's get here. Welcome back to Fast Politics. Get here. It's good to be here, so happy to have you America. We pride ourselves on our ridiculousness, but I feel like we may have hit a new low or high. And I kind of think there's like a the photos of people in the house trying to beat each other up.

Oh yeah, that was something, although I mean to maybe offer a reassurance not quite recivil war level yet, because of course, famously before the Civil War there was like a senator from our congressman I think from either South Carolina or Mississippi, who beat up an abolitionist on the floor of the house. You know, we're not quite there yet, but violence, you know, parliament is never good. I think they're good this as an interim Republican right Republican and

Republican violence. Yeah, Republican on Republican violence is well, you know, I say, let them sort of them. I mean it does remind me of this sort of civil war. Didn't you have standartors caning each other on the floor. Yeah, no, famously, Yeah, there was a very famous incident and people you know, challenging each other duels and yes, yes that's right. Yeah, I mean I don't think we're quite at the civil war stage hip. But on the other hand, I don't know.

I mean I have to like always do a check. I think you probably saw the story this morning of from New Mexico of the failed candidate Toloman Pena I believe is his name, and he was trying to shoot up Democrats and hiring people to shoot up Democrats as Yeah, as someone who spends a lot of time in New Mexico, I will say there was an important caveat in the art.

In one of the first reported articles, which I think was from a local newspaper which said something effective like, well, not entirely clear, because, as you know, New Mexico is very high murder and shooting, right, they had to make sure that this was not just like random. Sure. Yeah, I think I think we kind of have you know, that provides Oh and I think that were periods in American history were political violence was much higher than now.

I'm actually think, you know, like the eighteen fifties, like you know, there was like actually a lot of violence, things like Bleeding Kansas, and even in the nineteen sixties and nineteen seventies, when you look at the number of bombings and um tutings and assassinations most famously, it was like at a higher level that we have now. On the other hand, I don't think we should be complacent, Right,

there's a kind of you know, new political violence. I mean, I think one way to think about it is, I think Trump didn't really ever create anything, but he's created new permission structors for people to open up some of that bottled anger that they have inside of them. Yeah. I think we're seeing the consequences of some of that. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think I think it's worrying I've been talking to a little bit more optimistic.

I mean, I do think we've had three elections since, right, like two, and I think the Democrats are getting better actually over time, like you know, foregrounding the problems with Republican extremism and using it for its advantages. And I think that like in a lot of places, it's worked to their advantage. I mean, and honestly, like if the New York State Democratic Party weren't this like amazing contraption of ineptness and corruption, think I think that could still

be speaker or Kim Jeffreys could be speaker. It was pretty close. Yeah, No, I think that's right. And I mean I also think that it's like a situation where you have the FBI has gotten much better at stopping some of these crimes, right, so you know, like with Governor Gretchen Whitmer, you're seeing, you know, like that could have really gotten to be a very messy and ugly situation where she and they foiled the kidnapping. So I

do think it's sort of interesting. And then you have the far right super mad at the FBI and saying like the FBI is like this tool of the woke globalist establishment. I mean, so we are. I mean, I don't think anyone on the left thinks that the FBI is on their side famously. U yeah, I know. I mean it was interesting I figure out what it was.

But Trump had a sort of acronym for the FBI, like you know, forever barging interthing reminded me of you know, there's some MAFI also's thinking that maybe gaudy family who said FBI is forever bothering Italian so tump. So it's funny because I once Pete Strick explained to me the sort of how trumpy all of these law enforcement agencies are. And he had been at the FBI, and he had actually been very involved in training a lot of FBI agents, and he said that sort of the most trumpy was

the Secret Service and the Border Control. You know, those people are like very trumpy. And then you have you know, sort of lesser degree. You know, as you sort of get to be more of a kind of I don't want to sound like a snob here, but as you it to be people who are like, you know, more trained, they get sort of less and less trumpy. I just thought that was pretty interesting that, yeah, yeah, I know. I mean we weren't talk enough about the Secret Service.

I mean there's a couple of things. I mean, that's like reporting out there that Biden is, you know, concerned about the Secret Service and doesn't quite trust them, which as well, I mean would you I would not? Yeah, I mean I think that's a big thing. And I think, you know, there was that thing without January six where I think the exact details maybe you can remember them, but like they seemed to be like Pence was worried

about the Secret Service as well well. And also Pence remember they wanted him to get in that car and he wouldn't get in the car. I mean that's what I'm thinking about. Yea. There were so many machinations. Again, like we don't want to sound conspiratorial, certainly not, but there were a lot of a lot of things that the January six Committee was unable to thread the needle on. But had any of them been proven, they would have

been pretty shocking. I mean, there's a reported evidence out there that suggests at least part of the Secret Services compromised, and and that there are people, you know, um, including pens and Biden, who are a bit concerned about that's an area of concern. So none of it is good within limits. I think that some of the political response has been good. I mean, I think one thing one can sort of talk about is the January six Report.

In January six, I mean, I think that the January six Commission was very important, and I think that, you know, and I was something somebody who was kind of a bit cautious and concerned about it because I wasn't sure that, you know, this would actually win people over. But I think that in some ways that a lot of a Republican election denialist losing in the mid terms was due to the January six Commission keeping this issue in the

four ground, keeping it alive in people. And yeah, I mean one can have concerns or critiques, you know, like The New Yorker has a big critique from Jillapur, a very distinguished his story and about you know how the January six report doesn't like quite go into all the background in detail, and you know, I mean I think that's fair. I mean, I think it's very much designed to be a sort of prosecutorial brief. But yeah, I mean, I think other people can take up, you know, the

slack of what's missing in the January six commission. Yeah, I don't know. I mean I would urge listeners to like resist the you know, giving in to pessimism on all this time. Like, I think it's a much more mixed record. I mean, certainly the problem is any sort of like law enforcement solution to this is only a

partial solution. And that's for two reasons, one of which is that I think the GOP can always weaponize partisanship and both sides of them, and they can take like, oh yeah, of course, you know Trump took secret documents, but you know Biden have documents in his garage. Do that's all they need? I mean, like, I know, we can point out all the differences between Biden and Trump, but like they have their talking point now, right, they

have the point that can politically neutralize this issue. And the other thing with like law enforcement solutions is that they don't get to the sort of political issue. I mean, the political issue is, you know, Trump has activated this far right element which has existed for decades, which has existed you know, going back to Reagan and the John going back to the John Bridge Society, you know, going back to McCarthy's MS as you know from your family history.

Trump has activated that and has made it much more powerful than the Republican Party. And that's the set up a problem. And I think there are limits, you know, you know when once the investigating crimes and potential assassination attempts. But there's you know, like I would insist that, like a law enforcement solution is only a partial solution, and ultimately there's a political solution, which is you know, Democrats have to keep for grounding this stuff and using it

as a weapon to defeat Republicans. Yeah, oh, no question, And I mean, I that is a really good point. I mean, Republicans have been so brilliant about for example, like this. They've been continually saying and I don't mean brilliant because this is not a compliment, but you know, they've said things like the army is very woke, the army is to woke, the army is all woke PC And what they're doing is not that they think the army is woke, or maybe they do, but more likely

than not they don't. But it's more of a way of trying to push back against any kind of sensitivity that the army maybe you know, being trained to have. So it's almost like I wonder with a lot of these Republican talking points, they're almost as if they're sort of, you know, they see a possible in and so there's a kind of pushback before there's even something to push back against. Yeah, I wouldn't think a little bit further

than that. I mean, I think this whole issue of the army being walked goes back to a very specific thing, which is after January six, even before them, but it really became an issue after January six. There was a lot of concern about infiltration in the American military of having you know, these mega Trump best in the military, and we know Trump tried to put his own people in the Pentagon, including people who are very much part

of January six. And there was a perfectly justified concern, you know, not only among Democrats in the Biding administration, but within depending on itself about this. And there was like a sort of concernative effort to find these people into purchase, like you cannot have people who would be

on board with a coup uh in military positions. Um. And I think that people like Tucker Carlson, you know, took up the woke military stuff as a way of arguing against that as this is a way of trying to resist any attempt to keep the army non political and to keep you know, these kind of pro coup ideas out of the military. I mean, I think that's

that's my understanding of it. And I think if one looks back at like Winn Tucker Carlson really started talking about this stuff, and also some of the people he was quoting, which are people who are basically let go over the military, discharge from the military because they had procu sentiments. I think that's the issue with stick there. And I mean I think the Biden mesisasion has done it more low key than say Bosonnaro in Brazil. I mean I was actually just about to bring up Brazil,

but yes, go on in Brazil. I mean, you know, listener should understand has a much more They're much more cool friendly. Yes, yeah, yeah, I mean they have they have any democratic prison Brazil I think has to worry more about because they had military dictatorship, you know, in living memory in the nineteen eighties, and they've had a military that's been willing to intervene, uh sometimes with the green lighting of the United States they've had a military

that has been willing to overthrow democratic governments. So you know, Bostonnaro has gone pretty hard in terms of like you know, preaching the pro coup back in the military, which definitely in Brazil there was I think those are the kind of stakes here. I mean, I think in America it's a little bit we're not quite at the Brazil situation yet,

and I think it's a little bit low key. The other aspect I would kind of put out sociologically that's kind of worth thinking about, is the average age of like people coming into the military is always going to be around twenty one, right, Like, like the soldiers that you're getting in that you're wanting to be played there work and be very young, right, And so the people that are coming in the military were all born in this century, terrifying, and we're voted after nine eleven, right

like and so like, and if you'd like, you know, talk to like, you know, people that are born in the century, then their all view you know on some of our Republicans, but their all view of social issues.

You know, trans stop of gay stop is very different than Fox News viewership, which is like so so of course if you're like, you know, Fox News viewer er Carlson catered to those viewers that, yeah, you know, there's something where the military, you know, just for recruiting purposes, just for like you know, like trying to have to get people join the Mosary is going to put up ads and have a different discourse and dialogue then you know Fox News is it's just literally like party to

fifty year difference between the people who joined the army and the people watch Fox News. It is interesting to me though, that in Brazil they really they didn't funk around. They just arrested everyone. I'm not saying that the Brazilian law enforcement was right and the American law enforcement was wrong,

but it's an interesting data point. And if you think about all the times we've seen since during the Trump administration, people with long guns and a R fifteens going into state I mean, and you saw that in Michigan they all went into the state house. I do wonder how much of this had to do with just the worried that a lot of these people had guns. Yeah, I

think there's a worry that they have guns. There's also I mean in America, you know your point earlier about you know how trumpy various law enforcements could be, and you know, like how you can enforce it. I mean the Illinois gun law. I think it's a kind of interesting you know, data pointed as well, like just in terms of you could pass a you know, gun law, but they're gonna be sheriffs in rural areas that won't

enforce it. And I think some of the same issues come up here, like you know, like do you fully have all of law enforcement on board? He was worrying. I think Lula in Brazil took the right approach. You know, they have he has legitimate worries. And there was like you know, like even before the coup, like leaving up to the election, they were like you know, pro bowlts, scenarrow law enforcement and army. They were trying to prevent people from voting right, And I think that's one reason

why the election was as close as it was. I think it's a real issue and a real critique that's playing out in the Double Credit Party. Is the biding inversation doing enough? Is someone like Merck Garland, does he like you know, too afraid to like take some of the tough stances against Trump and against the sort of insurrectionist that one might need. I mean, yeah, I think

those are all open questions. I put it in the political context again, boy, I do want to say that I do think that there's a majority out there that is like horrified at the idea of insurrection and coups. And as as you know, as long as you can keep hammering that point over, I think that you know, that's to me, the road to get to the right, good place. That's the road to get the right to

get back to normal. But do you think I mean normal was not exactly you know, but yes to maybe on that go back to you because if you're not, you don't want to go back. But I mean to get to a good place, to get to like a better better position, uh, to get to like a marginalization, yeah, to sort of get out of this trumpy anti democracy stuff.

But I just want to ask you, as we find ourselves in this how much of you know, this coup talk and this election was rigged It didn't work this time, But how much of this is like what we're talking about with the military sort of preemptive strike to help have a coup next time? Yeah? I mean I think

that's the more worrisome thing. And I think that the political reality is what one would hope that is our Hopkins Party having lost in twenty and you know, like not lost, but having a very disappointing would moderate and so far that is really not happening, you know, and once sees it in sort of Kevin McCarthy and all this sort of the farce of his speakership and the way that he's like, you know, really empowered. You know, people were asking you to the right of Trump. I mean,

I think that's what you do. We understood that, like the battle over the McCarthy speakership was not like moderates versus the far right, as a lot of the media presentative that's absurd, Like McCarthy is on board with Margie Taylor Green. I know, it was like the Trump is right, the Trump is right of McCarthy. People who think that, yet the ultra McCarthy, you know, is an expression more Catholic than the Pope right, the altre Montaigne Trumps who

are like Trump doesn't go far enough. Oh joke about like you know, finding Hitler in Brazil and says, you know, well would you what would you regret? He said? Next time, no more, Mr nice guy, right exactly. I mean I don't want to laugh because it is actually just thank you so much cheat here. I hope you will come back. It's always a pleasure to be here. Eric Swallwhile represents California's fourteenth district. Welcome to Fast Politics. Rswow, Hey Mollett,

how are you good? Yeah? Crazy times here in Washington. So let's talk about this new Congress. Some committee assignments have come out. Kevin McCarthy is the Speaker of the House for now. If it was a law from it be called insurrection LLC. You know, they're here to defend your rights if you were held accountable to capital. It's kind of like a you know, one of those uh TV commercials. I think they're creating committees to defend their own rights because many of them are under an investigation.

And if you happen to be one of the eighteen Republicans who represent a Biden district, I think Kevin McCarthy and his corrupt bargain to become speaker has written your political death certificate. Because you're gonna have to vote to defund the troops. You're gonna learn everything about what was inside Hunter Biden's laptop, and you're gonna do absolutely zero to take on the issues you ran on, you know, bringing down the cost of healthcare, groceries, gas, et cetera.

I want to ask you about motion to VAKA because one of the many things that Kevin McCarthy did to get this job that he may not have very long. It's a motion to v K. Used to be under Nancy Pelosi was you had to be in leadership. Then it was five people. Now it's a one person motion. So does that mean that anyone at any time can call a new speakership race. Yes. My prediction, Molly, is that you're gonna see Marjorie Taylor Green be the one

who does it first. Okay, not in the prediction business, but it just feels like we're hurtling towards that direction because she, you know, has closely aligned herself with Speaker McCarthy so she can give her committee assignments back. But she's also promising everybody that Joe Biden and Secretary of Anarchists are all going to be impeached. And I think McCarthy is gonna find pretty quickly that those eighteen Republicans aren't going to want to go in that direct action,

and I can just see it now. So that's where the Republican I think the House, you know, so poperable, will take us. You have stunned me. I'm rarely stunned, but you have stunned me. We see all these pictures of Marjorie Taylor Green practically making out with Kevin McCarthy, and now you're saying she is going to be the judas. That's my prediction. Again, like who knows who she's loyal to.

But if you if you follow everything she's saying. She's saying that they're impeaching Biden, and they're in peaching you know, my orchist. They're gonna expunge Trump, you know, for his impeachments. And I think you're gonna start to see these eighteen Biden Republicans pumped the brakes. They started to suggest, you know, even with the rules package that they passed at that

was going to be too far for them. A Republican from a deep deep red district in Texas actually voted against the rules package because it was too far for him because of the troops defunding. So no, I I see that that's where this is going to be headed soon. And and frankly, Molly, the contrast I think most Americans are seen is perhaps we should not have given these guys the majority because we just had two years coming

after on the heels of the Trump administration. Democrats delivered and showed confidence and Republicans are just bringing chaos that that seems to be the state of play right now. So I want to get back into this. The committee assignments are sort of slowly rolling out. These guys are super into targeting. You can you talk a little bit about what happened last week with McCarthy. Yeah, and McCarthy loves to, you know, reheat the leftovers when it comes

to me. And just for your reviewer's sake, what he is referencing is that back in President Obama's first term, a volunteer on our campaign in a district of Asian Americans turned out not to be who they represented they were. The FBI told me that we worked with the FBI to help get rid of this person, and Speaker Bayner, who was the Speaker at the time when the FBI

told me this was read in on my cooperation. And this individual, Devin Nounez, who was the chair of the Intelligence Committee, was read in on my cooperation, and then only because a Trump official, you know, tried to suggest

that this was something else and leaked my cooperation. Has Kevin McCarthy, you know, out of political vengeance, targeted me, but Molly Donald Trump had access to more classified information than anybody in the world, and if he could have embarrassed me or shown any wrongdoing, he would have done it. And and and the FBI and three different statements when Kevin McCarthy started targeting me, have said there was no wrongdoing,

only cooperation. And because we removed Marjorie Taylor Green and Paul Cosar, you know, for the small infraction of threatening to kill Speaker Pelosi, Joe Biden, and Alexandria Costo Ortez, they want to remove me, shift and Omar out of just pure political vengeance. And and so again it's as I said, he's going back to something that was in President Obama's first term, where the FBI repeatedly that I did everything you're supposed to do and using it for

political vengeance. I don't Again, I don't think that's why they were put in the majority. But he seems to not be able to resist so let's talk about this because I just want to drill down on this a little bit. It seemed like McCarthy was saying, though, that he wasn't going to put you guys on certain committees, and that it wasn't going to be taking off of

all committees. So he has said for me, the Intelligence Committee and Homeland Security, for shift the Intelligence Committee, and and for ilhant Omar Foreign Affairs, and so you know what, we'll see again his his members have come out and said there's a number of them who have said they're uncomfortable with him doing this because I think it it does set a precedent. Because if the standard was don't commit political violence or threatened political violence, or you'll be

removing your committees. And now he's expanding it to just using it against his political enemies, well there's no end to that. And you know, I think every Republican in his conference should worry that if they're in the minority next Congress, that they could just be picked off the committees under the new McCarthy standards. Right, no, no question.

I mean, I also think it's super interesting that, um, that you have this sort of very delicate I mean McCarthy sort of one being pro Trump, but he was still you know, the people who were against him were also pro Trump, that's right, And he gave away, you know, the shop to get their votes. And again he's allowing them to with just one remember, take down the speakership. Again, he's promised to defund the troops. He has promised, you know, to leverage raising the dead ceiling to get cuts to

Social Security and Medicare and benefits of Americans count. And so again he is I would say speaker light. I wouldn't call them speaker I think speaker light is more fit. When you're in the House, everyone just pretends everything is normal, right, No, I mean they nearly had a fist fight, you know, well, yes, during the Yes but that was Republican on Republican violence.

But I mean, I'm just saying, molly. They they bizarrely, one of their members stood up and accused us of drinking on the House floor, which again it's one of the social chairs of the House Democratic Caucus. I can promise you if there was drinking, I would have known about. Okay, there's no drinking. Zero. But again, what we later would find out was they were projecting what they were doing, because the people who were in the fight admitted that want that Mike Rogers, who went over to pick a

fight with Matt Gates, had been drinking. And so again it's it's chaos. It's just chaos on their side. And c spans season two is definitely gonna get renewed. So what are we not seeing because you are on the floor and you are there and you're in it. What are not seeing as people who are on the outside the news is on smaller issues because the big stuff we have to do is fund the government, extend the

debt ceiling, keep Ukraine in the fight. That's all three of those are gonna be challenged because you know, they're the chaos agents on their side. I'm still the chair of the Rare Earth Elements Caucus with a Republican from Pennsylvania. I'm still the chair of the Precision Medicine Caucus with you know, a Republican colleague to reduce rare diseases and

detect them earlier. So on the small stuff, there's there's still friendships and working relationships and that will, like I think, continue. But on the committee side, you know the majority of their committee chairs voted to desertify the election. Right. So again that's why it looks like a law firm for the insurrectionists when you put all their pictures up, because they were pro insurrection and now they have gabbles and subpoena power and will litigate the grievances of Donald Trump

for the next two years. Who do you think it ends up being the next speaker? Republicans have this very very narrow majority. I mean, if things get crazy enough, there could be or am I just being way to west winging here? A unity candidate look like the Unity candidate was Hockeyen Jeffreys, right, because he never lost a vote. And you know there there were Republicans who were, you know, talking to us moderate Republicans about possibly switching over or

you're reaching out through kind of emissaries. In one case, somebody approached me about two different Republicans who were interested, and so I think they'll continue to flirt with that. But the reality, Molly is is again Kevin McCarthy struck this correct bargain with chaos agents who have threatened political violence. And so if you strap late that out, if you're a moderate Republican thinking about supporting a unity candidate, What do you think Margery Taylor Green or Paul goos are

is going to say about you and aim at you? Right? So I'm afraid that when it comes to actually crossing the rubicon, they look at Liz Cheney and Adam Kinziger and you know, the security apparatus around them, and they think, I don't I don't want to be that. So they just keep their head down. And again they they're the ones that will pay the price because they're the ones that are in the Biden districts. Right, You're going to continually have this tension, which is these people can win

a primary but can't win a general. That's right. We're here for that because we look at the courts, right, So the Republicans in Alabama, in Ohio and Florida, you know they drew uh these are egregious gerrymandered maps where the courts said, yes, these are illegal. We're not going to overturn maps, but we're gonna look at them in advance. So we expect there's probably three or four seats that

come back to us. So in a plus four or five majority where they are right now, we're gonna get three or four back and then, as I said, there's those eighteen Biden districts. You know, I don't know if George Santos will run from a rio jail, but knows when that takes us. With Marjorie Taylor Green sitting next to him, it doesn't she get that that could theoretically not be a great look for her. No, no, no, no, no no no. This is this is him pledging for

their fraternity, right like this, That's what that was. I mean, amazing stuff. Everything he said and the fact that he digs in with his lies that makes him more qualified to be in their crew. Been less right, That's that's what they believe in, is that you you know, it's the access Hollywood one, right, you never resigned, no matter what you do. I want to ask you about this Senate race from California. Already we have one or two candidates.

Dify has not said what she's going to do though she is eighty nine, so she would be when her next term ends, which would be quite old. I mean, do you think it's going to be a huge field? And also just tell us a little bit about running in Kewlifornia and what that looks like because it is the fifth largest economy in the world. You probably don't remember this, but I did run for president. Lasted a little bit longer than a cup of coffee, probably a gronde,

but not event team. I feel like Brittany may have mentioned this. Yeah, yes, that's right, tour therapist. Now, yeah, kid. One of our pollsters told me when we were thinking about running for president. He's he choked, he said, I actually he told me. He said, it's probably easier for you to be president than to be senator from California, because to be president you just have to, you know, win the first four states, you know, Iowa, New Hampshire,

South Carolina, and Nevada. And he said, if you add all of those states together, that's still not even half the size of California. So like, California is a state of forty million people, and you know, geographically, I mean, it's it's just you know, it's so difficult to you know, traverse the state. Um, you know, fifty eight counties. I believe it's just a big state. It's an expensive state. You have you know, um, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento,

and San Francisco Bay area media markets. I mean, it's it's so expensive to run ads, so expensive to you know, reach voters, and so, you know what, it doesn't surprise me that, you know, two of the people who are being talked about to run, Katie Porter, who's announced, and Adam Schiff, who it looks like may run already start with you know, millions of dollars into the bank, because that that's what it takes. And that's why you often see billionaires run UH in California because they know that

it's so expensive that it's real. It really does make a difference and gives them an edge. Um. Now, all of that said, I've I've got you know, I'm friends with Katie Porter, Barbara Lee Rocana, Adams Schiff, and you know most of us right now are focused on the storms, and once you get out of that, you know, we'll start thinking about you know, statewide candidates. Adam Schiff, I've worked the closest with. I don't have to tell you about.

You know, how fearless he was during the Russia investigation and impeachment. And I think his words will be repeated for centuries as far as you know what he warned about and how you know apprecient he was on the Senate floor talking about you know, the duties of the president and Trump's portrayal. I'll wait to make any endorsements until after, you know, the storm season. I mean because California is one of those states where the primary vote

is really it right. They don't have really you know, broad generals the way you do in swing states. So I mean, how do California primary voters tend to vote? So I'll couch it this way. It could be two different elections. And first remember it's a top two primary, and in one six team Kamala Harris in the general election faced off against Labretta Sanchez, another Democrats. So it is very likely that you could see two Democrats in

the general election. That's not unlikely at all. If there's multiple Republicans running and a number of well known Democrats running, you can see two Democrats getting through. That's what happened in However, the primary in is a late primary. It's in June, and so if there is no contested Democratic presidential primary, the voter turnout will be relatively low. That is one factor. If there is a Democratic presidential primary, the turnout would be incredibly high. So I'm sure candidates

are thinking about that. If it's low turnout, excuse, I would say more progressive voters are the words who turn out. If it's a presidential primary, then you're drawing really a broad base of voters. But I would not be surprised at all if there were two Democrats who make it to the general in this primary, because well funded candidates.

Oh wow, that is wild stuff. So this Democratic California Senate race could go on and on and on and on, just like the mayoral did an lle It will be one of the most expensive I think senate races in the country. So interesting. Eric Swallwell, thank you so much for joining us. I hope you'll come back pleasure. Thanks, of course, I know you, our dear listeners are very busy and you don't have time to sort through the

hundreds of pieces of pundentry each week. This is why every week I put together a newsletter of my five favorite articles on politics. If you enjoy the podcast, you will love having this in your inbox every Friday. So sign up at Fast Politics pod dot com and click the tab to join our mailing list. That's fast politics pod dot com. Alex Theodortas is an associate professor at you Mass, amherst and co director of the U Mass Polling Center. Welcome to Fast Politics, Alex Theodoretis. You know

you sent me something. You work at you Mass, you do polling, that's your raison, Detrah, And he sent me a poll that kind of blew my mind because it was something I've been thinking a lot about. Can we talk about that? Yeah, so, you know we so at the UMS poll We we run poles periodically. This is

not the golden era of doing survey research. But you know, one of the things we're always trying to get a sense of that I think surveys really can still do for us is give us a sense within certain pockets of which way things are moving, how things are looking. And obviously, the narrative coming out of the mid term certainly has been of a Republican Party that's sort of quitting Donald Trump, that has now seen him, you know,

all these other things that he did. You know that those those were not enough to kind of to kind of leave him in the dust. But costing an election, which by the way, this wasn't the first election he cost them, right, it's the third, right, right, But costing an election, that's that's crossing a line, and so you know, you're hearing that elite narrative. I've been sort of suspicious

of that. So we wanted to see just how much the rank and file have received this memo that Donald Trump is in the rear view mirror, you know, and and there's some mixed stuff in there, but generally speaking, I mean, this is not a party where the average voter is giving a stiff arm to Donald Trump. He's not personna on grata among the Republican rank and file. He still leads if you look at the way too early numbers, you know, he still gets the most first

place votes. What's remarkable there is that Rhonda Santis seems to have become the non Trump alternative. All caveat that by saying that very few people probably know very much honestly about Rhonda Santis at this point. But he's he's in a dead heat with Trump still getting more first place votes and them being essentially tied and a head to head. But if you look at other things, and certainly it's not the case that most Republican voters are

unwilling to have Donald Trump on the ballot. He's still a top three choice for he gets the most first place votes. He's a top three choice for most Republicans if you ask them, you know why, we give him a bunch of possible reasons why Republicans underperformed, UH, in the two midterm elections. Donald Trump only gets ten percent among Republicans. He's only ten percent think he's the reason.

So what do they think is a reason? They think the reasons are the sort of old UH, stand by the greatest hits of rationalizations, media bias thirty so the mainstream media, and then you know, said voter fraud. Right, So we've got over half of the Republicans, you know, already choosing these things that are basically central to Trump's talking points. The vast majority of Republicans still tell you

that Biden's election was not legitimate. After all the work the January six Committee did, the vast majority of Republicans are still not placing blame for January six at the feet of Donald Trump. Instead, they point to Capitol Police, they point to the Democratic Party and tifa's in the mix there. Um. They do not think Donald Trump should be prosecuted for his involvement in in January six. They continue to believe the narrative that January six was a protest.

That's how they describe those events, and that's how they describe the participants as protesters. Interesting they are they have learned nothing from this election. You know. The truth is it usually takes a long time for parties to learn things because parties are not an it there they there's a big collective action problem, right and you know Republicans are dealing with that right now. I mean they, first

of all, they created this. Republican elites created this by even before Donald Trump sort of cow towing to conspiracy theorists, you know, being being way way too willing to just allow these kind of conspiracy theories about Obama to build led up and fester. And then and then Donald Trump seized on that. Uh. And then obviously they just bowed down to Donald Trump for four years and have continued

too largely. This is the problem is now you have this situation where it's going to take a long time for the Republican electorate to catch up to this message, if they ever do. I think a lot of people are anxious that this is sort of setting the stage for a Republican party that will not accept election results. This is the great tragedy of Donald Trump. And this is something that that for people like me. I mean I do polling, but as a as a scholar, my

focus is on partisan polarization. And this is what people like me are afraid of. When you talk about partisan polarization. I say partisan polarization because it's distinct from polarization along other lines in this particular way. And and and I mean, as you know, we've been polarized as a country for forever, for decades, there's there was huge polarization. You know, your

mom faced polarization with her books. We were polarized, you know, in terms of the feminist movement, of civil rights movement, in terms of Vietnam. There have been massive, massive divides. These divides, until recently, have not fallen along party lines. And that's a key distinction. And what happens when when polarization falls along party lines is that elections and democracy become the battlefield. And when that's the case, the greatest fear is that one side or the other will decide

to not recognize the results of an election. And that's exactly what we've seen here. It's terrifying. There's a there's a big incentive to do that. And by the way, that's largely what happened leading to the Civil War. Now, I don't think we're on the verge of a civil war, but I do think we may be on a on the verge of a gradual movement of democratic backsliding caused by this election denialism that Donald Trump has inserted into

our body politics. It's interesting though, I mean, these Republicans are sort of in denial, right. They don't believe that anything that's happening is real, right. They don't believe that they're losing because of Trump. They believe they're losing because of election fraud and the media and this and that. So and I feel like it harkens back to this idea that Trump, you know, Trump would say, don't do male and voting. But it was ultimately hurting Trump and

his people. And I mean we saw that in Florida, so a lot of us were worried that this would undermine democracy, but largely mostly undermine Trump Ino and his people. I do think that their attacks on democracy were important in mobilizing democrats more than anything else. I also wouldn't dismiss I think there's there's been too much willingness to dismiss related thing, which is the which is the Dobbs decision.

I think that had a big impact, especially among young voters, young Democratic voters, in terms of terms of mobilizing them. I think that yes, on the margins, people choosing not to use mail in ballots probably stifled some of the

turnout among Republicans. But to me, the much larger concern is the fact that you now have a massive part of the American electorate concentrated in one party that that you know, just has been convinced that they shouldn't necessarily trust elections, and if it's in their interest and if it's in the elite interest to deny the results of an election, they do it. We look at January six,

the events of January six, those were horrific. The much more consequential thing I think that was happening is that essentially we had a president with a tacit at least support of his party um and his supporters just sitting back there pulling on threads, trying to figure out if there was a thread that would let them stay in power,

and this time there wasn't. But I don't really want to live in America where if there is such a threat, if they did control the House of Representatives, if some of these mechanations that they were trying to put into place actually had the potential to work where somebody does stay in power because they have the House of Representatives as a final backstop, or because as an even further final backstop. You know, what is the military think? Right,

what do they have to say about this? Right? All right? You never want to get to that place. Yeah, And that's and and that's what worries me, right, that we move in a direction where a lot of Republicans would have been okay with that, A lot of Republicans wouldn't have said anything about that. That to me is what's scary about January six and the whole big lie. Yeah, I mean, you know, that's the underlying anxiety that we

all operate under. But it is interesting to me seeing this polling, and I want to ask you abortion because the Jobs decision, we saw a lot of Democrats over performing in special elections, and we saw all of these bow in initiatives passing broadly that were pro choice or anti anti choice. But Republicans in Congress, one of the first things they did make another anti choice bill, and again it has no chance of passing. It's merely theatrical.

But it does strike me that in order to get the they really have hit a point where, in order to keep the base engaged, they have to do things that alienate the mainstream. Yeah, I mean, and this gives you a window on some of the pressures that Kevin

McCarthy and everybody else have to deal with. In our latest poll, we asked what the Republican House should do, and this is, you know, again, after mediocre showing at best in the mid terms and having a very arrow margin obviously in the House, and Republican voters in massive numbers want them to impeach Joe Biden, and not only that, but expect that they will. More than half. They want them to investigate Hunter Biden obviously, investigate the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Invest I mean we're talking about in the eighties and nineties. Numbers, investigate the dealing with the southern border, and similar numbers want them to pass legislation that has no chance of becoming law just for the sake of passing that legislation. Only only about half said that they should also pass some compromise with Democrats and Joe Biden in order to actually pass things. It's so incredibly insane. Obviously, it's not the legacy of Trump. It's the legacy of of Reagan,

you know, of Watergate, of nix It. I mean, this is you know, the Southern strategy. I mean, this is but it is like Trump was like, why are we disavowing white supremacists when we can just go along with them and that will increase our voters. And I think, like, we're seeing why you don't want to do that. Trump basically did away with the dog whistle. You can just say it and and and hopefully that's not the lesson

that Republicans have taken. But I fear it is that a lot of Republican elites have sort of learned from Trump's example that you know, there are no consequences. And by the way, that is another thing that polarization and hyper polarization brings us. You know, you're not dealing. It

makes accountability much more difficult. If voters are so divided into these into these party silos, and they're hearing different media and exposed to a completely different universe of people, it makes it very hard to to break through, you really get like an event horizon in terms of UH, in terms of trying to communicate, It's like the Santos thing.

You know, people are saying, well, why should he resign in all politicians, you know, instead of saying like this person is morally corrupt or you know, it's he's our guy and I'd rather have our guy than you know. It is curious to me as we're talking about this that I mean, it seems to me like Republicans are just unwilling to take the pain they would need to take in order to pivot back to center. It's very

hard once you push a party in this direction. They've gone very far in this direction, right, They've purged most of the people who would want to do that, and then you have this group that their whole purpose is not to legislate or anything else, it's to push this It's basically to serve as as trolls of the left.

It's extremely hard. And you know, this whole narrative thing, this this notion that somehow the party was going to pivot because of one clear loss that could be attributed to Trump serving as an albatross around the neck of Republicans and their electoral fortunes. You know that that's asking a lot. It takes a long time. It took a long time in the eighties, for example, for Democrats to sort of switch course. And the reason for that is that these these narratives post election tend to very much

be a roar shock test. As you said, you know, everybody kind and and all of us do it. There's always an argument. I mean, Bernie Sanders supporters are still talking about ways in which he would have beaten Trump, and there's this strong impulse to engage in motivated reasoning,

to rationalize the thing that you already believed. And so it's very easy to do that in a world where we're only seeing one reality and we have we don't see all the counter factuals, and so it's very easy to say, okay, well, in this counterfactual that I preferred, we would have ended up in this, in this blissful place, right. Interesting, yeah, yeah, yeah, And I mean that's what happens if you have no sense of like what the mainstream world is like, you

just have these sideloed right wing media ecosystem. Can you explain a little bit about how you guys are are you working on changing polling to reflect better our new world. Yeah, I mean, one thing we really want to do is change what we ask of polls more than anything else. And I think that's a big part of the problem. You know, a poll can't tell you who's going to

win a one or two percentage point election. What I always tell people is that it is sort of remarkable in this day and age that polling is as good as it is because the challenges are incredible. You know. I tell my students that there are two art forms that have really been challenged by cell phones and call our idea, and one of them is prank phone calling, you know, which was a big thing when I was a kid. May it rest in peace, and you can't

do it anymore, and and pulling. People just don't answer their phones. It used to be you could in the eighties you could draw a simple random sample by randomly choosing phone numbers and most people answered and you had a really good picture. Now there's so much work you have to do, and it's made harder by polarization. It's made harder by turnout differentials and things like that. So there's just a lot of work that goes in that creates variability on polls, but they still can answer a

lot of questions in terms of big movements in opinion. Right, is it most of Republicans who believe that the election was stolen? Not so much? Is it fifty one? Or that such and such a candidate is going to receive And also there are things that we can learn about

the internal workings of political cognition and political psychology. And so we try to bring the things that we've learned as scholars, which tend to be very different from what's just of interest to the kind of polling groups out there that are doing these horse race polls, you know, experiments and and certain batteries of questions to really get a little deeper while still making it accessible into political thinking,

political behavior, political political cognition. And I think that's what we think of at the UMS poll as our comparative advantage. Thank you so much, Very interesting, my pleasure. Jesse Cannon, Molly, John Fast, George Santos, George Sans got another layer of the onion today. Where did the money come from? Where did the money come from? The ponzi scheme that employed repped George Santos for nearly a year has deeper ties to the shadowy world of the former Soviet Union, not

yugoslavin the former Soviet Union that previously understood. Is anyone surprised by this? That would not be me being surprised. I feel like the the Santos thing has gone on and on. But now the question is where did the money come from? Spartacus wants to know where the money came from? Who among us? You know, it's not all tracked down yet, but it certainly sounds like the guy

had no money. And then all of a sudden, he's donating seven thousand dollars to his campaign, sending money over to Russia, sending money over to Russia, involved in all sorts of sketchy shit, and for that he is and make continue to be the recipient of our moment of funckery. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to your the best minds and 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.