Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds and.
New Reuters ipso's poll says fifty one percent of Americans are opposed to military strikes against drug boats.
We have such a great show for you today. Notice his own Evan McMorris, San Toro stops by to talk about the post Epstein email fallout. Then we'll talk to Semaphore's Dave Weigel about the vibe shift since election Day. But first the news.
What would you say if I told you that Trump is taking his cues from Zoronmandani.
I would say that I wouldn't actually be that surprised, because I had some reporting that's said as much.
Well, now all everybody's talking about is affordability, and I think it's a very interesting story that particularly more is Cats told on our podcast last week that when everybody was thinking of other things, Zoron had a hunch that even though the pulling said othertherwise, that affordability was the real thing people needed to talk about.
And now it's trickled all the way up to the White House.
So we know that Trump found Mondani to be popular and to be charming, and that he had sort of like game recognized his game, Like he saw a politician that had that thing that he has, and he was both threatened and also inspired by it. But the problem was affordability for Trump. Is that Trump is now, I mean, he's basically in if you do the math, his fifth year in office, and he has yet to make anything more affordable. If anything, things seemed to be less affordable than ever.
Right, you walk in the grocery aisles, your jaw drops at the prices these days.
Right, So the idea that Trump could somehow vibe shift this seems in my mind to be kind of not But maybe he'll be able to do it. But this affordability issue is kind of like I just don't think you can put lipstick on a pig like this. I mean, it's this idea that the richest cabinet in the world, right, the richest cabinet, These are the richest people in the world serving in the government. You have an administration that the first three months you had Elon Musk practicing reverse philanthropy.
It's hard to spin this as now they care about affordability just because Democrats want an election on affordability.
So Fanny Willis's Georgia election interference case against Trump will carry on for now with a new prosecutor.
Yeah again, look, this is super interesting because, like, this is something that Trump does not want, just like the Epstein files being released, just like the Supreme Court arguing against his tariffs, right, just like him hearing some of his Supreme Court justices complaining about the tariffs or pushing back on the tariffs. This is not what Donald Trump wants. And you know, little cracks in Trumpism are showing, and you know, you could say I'm being overly optimistic, but
I really think that's what this is. Like, he is losing his power over the Republican Party. When Marjorie Taylor Green and Lauren Boepert and Nancy Mays and Tomas Massey, when these people are breaking with him, they're breaking with him because they see opportunity, because they see a place where the party is no longer Donald Trump's. And so things like this, every little bit of this starts to disintegrate the power of trump Ism. And these things are meaningful.
And Georgia is a really good example of the place where there are two Democratic senators. They lost a state house race. I think this is meaningful.
Yeah, no, I totally agree with you that I think this is a show of the increasing weakness. So weird, weird week of lots of related news stories. We see such a disturbing story in the New York Times about former congressman and Trump's ag pick, Matt Gates and a seventeen year old girl who is trying to get braces.
Think about this is like a backlash to a backlash to a backlash, right, me too, you know, sort of canceled a lot of these bad guys, and then there was kind of a backlash and Donald Trump got reelected, and now we come back to this fact that some of these people are just bad people. So here's the story. Trump initiated a g pick. He denies report he paid for sex with a homeless seventeen year old saving money for braces. Like, every part of the story is so bad.
But these kind of stories, people don't come up with these things haul coths usually, so a bombshell bipartisan report from the House Ethics Committee. By the way, the House Ethics Committee is known to be toothless. So the idea that they have come up with something that is this bad is a pretty good sign that my man Matt Gates was too no good that he Gates regularly paid women to engage in sexual activity. One of those transactions
involved a seventeen year old girl in twenty seventeen. The girl's lawyer, Lord be Wolf, spoke to The New York Times after a federal judge unsealed documents related to the seventeen year old's alleged experience. So she's homeless, she is underage, and she's being taken advantage of. Greenberg later paid her four hundred dollars to meet him on his boat. Greenberg is an ally and friend of Gates is who was
in jail for sex trafficking. Greenberg contacted her again and paid first sex seven times before inviting her to a party at the home of Chris Dorthworth, a former Republican member of the Florida State House of Representatives. Gates attended the party, which took place Underly fifteenth twenty seventeen, had
sex with the seventeen year old twice that evening. Her testimony, which was included in the report seen by The New Time, stated that she was paid four hundred dollars documents stay she danced in front of them and swam naked in the polls popper. She then moved to Texas to use her minimum wage income to pay for braces. The alleged incident only came to light when Greenberg was investigated for mailing fake letters to a school where a political opponent worked,
claiming the opponent had sexual relationship with a student. Look, this guy could have been the head of the DOJ. Like the DOJ.
Everybody think he was running for governor this round, And yeah, I think this is the end of that.
In congratulations Governor Byron do.
It's so so so disturbing, and it's so dark and it's just horrific.
Speaking of Florida, not my favorite state.
When we did our little dot com project twenty twenty five, one of the things you really noticed reading that document is these people are real excited to get their warped ideas into schools. And what we now see is Florida will be adopting the Heritage Foundation's school agenda.
This is so if Florida has really cooked its own education crew and just beyond and they've adopted this conservative education plan, it is from Heritage. Heritage is pretty cooked. It's developed by again, this is Project twenty twenty five. Basically Florida Governor Ronda sant All Governor Ronde Santas wants is to be president and he thinks that if he
goes the most MAGA, he will be president. And there is almost really no evidence to support that MEGA is ideological as much as it is just you know, charismatic and a lot of ways, MAGA is really just whatever Trump wants it to be. But this crew has a sort of ideological bent. And so they're going to take over these Florida schools and you know, God only knows
what they'll do to these kids. They'll teach them, you know that dinosaurs were not you know, real, and who even knows, But Florida students and families deserve investment in their public schools, not a political pledge written by outside groups. Isn't this actually just political campaigns? Like it's a little ironic trojan horse. Here, here we are, ladies and gentlemen, and there we go. Dave Weigel is a reporter at some before. Welcome to Fast Politics, Evan, Alight, thanks for
having me. I'm so excited to have you to talk about how this insane moment in American political life.
That's your evergreen intro, right, you use that for every episode pretty much.
I think today sometimes American politics is just really disappointing and sometimes it's really worrying. But right now we're in this period like I feel like the first nine months of Trump's administration, it was like, oh shit, this American democracy experiment may be over. And now I feel like, oh no, these guys are doing what they did last time.
Yeah, well, you know I did. I was in a c SPAN analyst on election night, so I sat there all night a.
Question try and to make me jealous.
No, yes, exactly, but no.
The fun thing about doing on CCS.
On you know, I'm like obsessed with c SPAN, and you take calls.
And everything, and the funny thing about it is that it's like you're just kind of like a learning the studio with the host and you're watching all of the.
And also no one is watching it, but may that's right.
Well, you only had some callers it, Okay, my mom watched, I think, but they they do a lot of uh they you know, they show all the speeches and everything. So it was fascinating for me because that night was sort of as you say, it was this moment of like, oh right, like politics are actually still happening, Like this administration is failed to message itself because you know, heading into that cycle, right, the whole idea was this administration
is so different. This is a dimocrat of politics. Right, They're going to be able to stay in power forever. We're going to win every election. Democrats have nothing, they can't do anything. And then sort of every different kind of style of Democrats they were around the ballot effective won all over, which is I was a strange moment of like, oh okay, I guess the loss of Grabby
do apply. And then of course the most hilarious part about that is that I'm like home that someday or whatever, whatever Sunday, that what recent Sunday, doing my newsletter that I have you for notice, and like as we're watching this implosion of the democrats shutdown strategy happen in real time, and I was another moment where all of a sudden, everyone's like, oh my god, the Democrats they're they're they're
they're doing it, they're blowing it. It's this oh my god, and we're and we're backing this idea that like politics is broken forever and the Democrats are blowing it. And then where we sit today, the President looks completely feckless. He's had his own business yelling at him by H one B. Visa's telling him about Epstein, yelling him about the things he's been saying and doing.
Uh.
And the Democrats, which like three days ago were like forever gone and destroyed because of this of this shutdown thing that's like agent history now and now we're back in this world in which Trump is once again bad and not and has no control and can't handle anything.
So you're right, And this is one of the wildest roller coasters I had been on, and I think it does sort of end with Trump is like not doing that great and his administration is not doing a great job of communicating or rechiging itself very well.
He's also, my man is underwater on all the things.
Yeah.
Look, the most interesting thing I've been tracking this since the beginning of the administration, right, because the main thing this administration tried to do and pitch, just like on administrations do, was twenty twenty fours economics an economy election. This president said, I'm an economy guy where I do a bunch of economy stuff, and I've been tracking through the entire time kind of the messaging that they've been trying to do, and if it has mostly been look,
we know what we're doing. People are going to tell you this is bad, but it's actually really good. You got to hang out air, trust us, and you've got to believe us. Right, the polts have shown that that's now really been working, and now this president has reverted to the kindie economic messaging that was just the Biden economic message. You like, actually, you the American people are wrong.
Everything is great, We're doing great. Everything rocks. And that is kind of a funny full circle moment because you're
in the situation where you're just looking at this. I've talked to Biden officials throughout the administration like sort of like from the beginning of this, Like you can go back and look at the reporting I was doing in January to now, and I ran the story a bunch of times of like officials from a Biden administration being like, oh my god, Like they're saying the same stuff that
we said. They're doing the same stuff that we said. Right, Because this this central challenge of like, we have these basic economic problems that will probably take a long like need long term solutions, but the public wants short term solutions.
Right.
This guy was supposed to be able to figure that out, because the whole thing about Trump is he's such a great communicator, he's so well trusted and so well believed that he's the guy people will follow into hell because some promises there, but the other side things will be good,
and that is one thousand percent not happening. And so you were watching them flail around the same way that other administrations short face the same problem flail around, which is that way they have no way to explain to people what to do about these prices and things like that.
But I do think that a real difference between trump Ism and normal administrations of any stripe is that Trump did tariffs, and tariffs made things more expensive. So like he ran saying like I'm going to make bacon cheaper and then almost immediately did everything he could to make things more expensive. Now, I don't think he thought that's what he was doing, but that is a direct a direct consequence of.
The tariffs, that's right. And I'm going to tell you they had no plan for this have been talking to that. I think I've been reporting on just being an administration, okay, because I kept asking them, you know, like there's a political supporter perspective, So what's your plan from prices go up because of terrorists? What's your plan? What are you going to say?
What are you going to do?
And what they would say to you repeatedly over and over was they're not going to go up. They're not going up. It's not going to happen. They're not going to go up. They're not going to go up. Lately they've been saying things like, well, look a little bit of short term pain, you know, but they haven't been doing that right along, and they can't. And now they're talking about me piling back some of these teriffs. You know,
just switch over. But I'll say, you know, the other major difference is that they don't appear to have a message that at all connects with what people are actually feeling and thinking about. You know, like a lot of things with the Biden administration, they did a lot of stuff that actually sort of like was sort of what experts and a lot of folks think it's sort of the right thing to do to freeze and manufacturing jobs back,
raise wages. You know, you can look at the inflation and the rest of the whole world and the inflation of America, and it was like kinds of better in America during that inflationary period, et cetera. They couldn't really communicate that because of various and surnry reasons, primarily you know, Biden was not the best person to be commun getting it. The Trump administration is like face planting wildly with its attempts.
Like a thing that really fascinated me to happen recently was almost sudden You're like, oh, what about a fifty year mortgage?
Guys?
Cheaper it's longer, it's gonna be fifty years, so like it's cheaper to get it because you have to pay less money every year. Brilliant and like immediately maga world and sort of folks who aren't like the populists right said like what are you talking about? Like you wann't be able to pay more money to the banks? You want there to be more debt, like.
Like like this this is a solution that like when it was rolled out, it was like strutting around like a ha, we got it, Like did off fifty year mortgage.
And it's like immediately everyody's like this insitute i've ever heard and you've not heard about it again, right, this This is the kind of thing that's happening, is that the reality of the situation is they have got to give you know, they wanted they get an affordability message that actually like takes on some of this stuff like prices and things like that and some destructural stuff that they're just not that interested in. Tariffs were supposed to
do it. But tariffs again makes everything more expensive right now, Theoretically down the road, it doesn't. And they needed Trump to be the guy to carry the public forward with them, and it's not happening. One the taco thing, right, he kept flipping around on these terairufs.
Anyway.
Two, they can't stand the heat, which no administration can stand either, which is like they're doing this, well, holy crap, we could just drop the tariffs and maybe prices will go down, and they're gonna do that's what they're talking about.
Truth.
But you know, the healthcare thing, they have no plan on the healthcare thing, as they've never had, right, Democrats had a plan out, They've talked about it they have an idea of how to bring healthcare costs down. In this particular case, this ACA subsidy thing that would shut down what's about was like literally a moment where you could sign it, build and bring costs down. Republicans don't want to do it. They're trapped in their own kind of world on this. And I think it was sort
of always coming. But everybody just thought that these magicians in Trump's White House, led by Trump himself, that somehow have some sort of magic beings that could you know, get through through this. They don't have it. And now they, you know, they look like people who are just kind of like grabbing anything they can get their hands on, like a fifty year mortgage that nobody wants.
Yes, the fifty year mortgage that nobody wants. What you see with this administration when you when you see them start to fall apart. What I think is so interesting is you see what good messaging looks like and bad messaging looks like. For example, Ebstein. So this administration is on the run from Ebstein, right, And there was this dump yesterday of thousands of emails. They had things like, you know, Trump in Epstein, an in Palm Beach Thanksgiving
twenty seventeen. Now did they have a meal together, Who knows, But there are emails that say they were both there at the same time after Trump was already president, which means that Trump's timetable, if these emails are true, is incorrect. Right, that his timetable of not speaking to the guy since two thousand and four is bullshit. So they're just the dump after dump after dump of emails and this and this one and that one, and a lot of them that say Trump is stupid, like a lot.
Yeah, very traffic emailing.
Yes, that's right, Yes, I mean a lot of typos. What are your take? What's your I want to talk about the messaging on the Epstein, but first I want you to talk about your take on the Epstein emails.
Wellok, the Epstein emails themselves. I don't know that what we had seen, Like you mentioned this idea of like the timeline changing and things like that. I think all you have to know about whether or not the administration was worried about out more Epsteam stuff coming out is because of how worried they are about more stuff coming out, they're casting, you know, they drag Lauren Bobert through the situation room to try and get her to kill this discharge petition.
Did it work the first and last time that Lauren Bobert will ever be invited to the situation room?
Oh no, I mean never say never. Twenty twenty eats up that far away, Molly, I shut up?
Why do you hate me? But as Sarah Palin Lauren Boebert ticket.
Now, I think it's a Bobert emptg. I think I think it's like it's time to get the space lasers onto the sky.
I think it's well, you do.
Not use my queen's name in vain and continue.
But anyway, so you only have to know that they that they don't want themut because it worked too hard to think you get them out in ways that are really embarrassing. I mean, you know they've tried to pressure lawmakers and they couldn't get them to do it. On the messaging front, I will tell you I spent yesterday
or the day after the emails came out. I just sort of watched every stream daily stream of and email and checked with my colleagues, reached out to every single one of the right wing influencers that got that binder back in February from PAYM Bondy the Epstein Binder that like completely kicked off his entire.
Things was such a disaster, right, amazing, You've reached to every single one of them.
I reached out to everything one of that. Well, we reach out to a one or watch their st because we all do daily streams and stuff. So we checked in and see what they were all doing and saying. Right, and in general, what they're saying is that like, look, these emails don't don't change the story. Trump is like not part of this. He's not the bad guy, and these emails like he's not the bad.
Guys in all the emails.
Their view on the substance is that this doesn't actually incriminate him more. And look, look these emails, they don't say anything. They're not definitive, right, definitive is that birthday book?
Right?
That's like, oh wow, things are this is very bizarre.
But I do say things like he knew about the girls.
Yeah, but like you know, you look at the context, like whatever, this is what they said. But on the messaging front, I will tell you, on the messaging front, they are absolutely baffled. One guy said, I don't know why he keeps using the word hoax. I think he doesn't know what the word hoax means. Like, wow, everything that the White House is doing to try to shut this down Trump talking about a hoax. You know they
were not into the distart petition. I will say, like, you can look at some messaging, like I don't know what the White House is doing in terms of.
Pocket of these folks.
My colleague Jasmine is pretty sure that they are fairly regularly reaching out to the right wing media spear on this issue. Though as yet it's not like those influencers were egging the Republicans on to break with the president and vote for the and vote for the bill to get these morripcing files out. But they were baffled at the messaging, very confused and really like I said, this whole thing, but you know, he doesn't know what a word hoax is, Like why he keep staying oaks Like
you're in the emails, this is real. What you've told people is that you didn't do anything wrong and you're not part of any of the amy criminal And the emails don't seem to change that conversation. Why not just let them out? Why not just talk more about that and put that more out. It's opposed to this weird thing of like this is not a real story. This is not a real story. So that's from people who
like desperately want want that to be real. They're the ones who are saying Trump is really messing up this messaging. So that to me was really fascinating, and I think there was a really illuminating as to where this moment is that like they really don't know how to deal with this because they've got a guy at the top
to keep saying, what are you talking at? Hoakx fak, they're making this up and like nobody thinks that everybody wants to see these emails, and they're not able to get up in front of it because they have this weird message of like this is not a work, this is a waste of everybody's sorry, and like which by the way, may end up very well being, but like, who do you want to see this?
At this point?
Who doesn't want to see them?
Though?
My favorite for problematic messaging problem involves Megan Kelly, who had a clip where she was saying a young fifteen year old is not the same as a five year old. Live your life, so you are never defending the difference between having sex with teenagers and having sex with toddlers. Fair.
Fair, it's a good word to live. I do have that. I do have that tattooed on my arm. You know, I think it's a good it's a good rule of thumb. Look, how did she get.
To how did she mental gymnastics herself into a moment where she was defending that?
So I look, I think I don't really know what to get in the head of digging Kelly particularly, but
I will. You know, this is this thing of how they're all trying to cretchel themselves to deal with this, and you know, this is a good this this is the very like only like the weirdest libertarians you've ever met in your life are the ones who do the like, well, actually California is actually right, like it doesn't really particularly matter very much, like, but but down this road, it's like, yeah, yeah, this is this is one of those stopp incriminating yourselves conversations,
you know, right, But I think that, But I think that it's because they're in this really tough spot because they have they have nothing to grab onto because nobody like the messaging of this thing is not like, yeah, put them all out. We're fine, We're fine, but please don't release anything else. And also like, look, you know it's been interesting because Megan tell you think it is representative of something going on in the concerative movement right now.
You know, she was the one who really cluded me in. I watched her stream and clued me into all the posts Charlie kirk assassination and talk about the conspiracies and you know, about Israel, about exactly Israel and the idea like she was only clued me into all that because she was the one talking about Candice Owens being a genius and all that sort of stuff.
So she's anti Semitic too.
Well, I don't know anything about that.
She says that she's not at all. She's like, she's very strongly she strongly does.
Think Israel might be responsible.
Well, no, she had a whole clip that was talking about Candace. This is right off the assassination things. You know, there's things have changed ince then. But she talked about how there was a you know, this sort of leading that Charlie Kirk was supposed to have had at Bill Appman's house and like this, you know, and and how it was. The whole idea was that Charlie Kirk was
moving into an anti Israel position. And this is only just very worthwhile to note all their worked while to understand and this is a really reasonable conversation to have, and like that is a sort of growing conversation as well.
And so when you see making Kelly's saying something that sounds like really like the sort of farthest right take on stuff, it's because like that far right is really gaining a lot of traction right now, and at the same time, the White House is trying to figure out its way through this you know, really self imposed thicket that if I mean, you know, it grew a thicket and jumped into it when it comes to this, you know, to this Epstein stuff, I mean, it's you know that
I don't know. The Binders are the perfect example of that, where it's like they didn't release all the files but said that they did, and like the whole thing was really really wild.
But like I think this there's all.
Swirling in a moment right now where like just suddenly this whole political project does not seem that standing on such a firm ground right now, they're talking about you know, there's some in this conspiracy world. They're Taksinbau, who counts as a panophile. These were paying Megan Kelly, you know even the other people are talking about is the presence
bringing up talking about a hoax? Is it is kind of like a moment where if you were in politics, if you were running for something right now, you would not want to be in their camp. Yeah, and that is like a rare moment that has not been true since sort of November of last year.
Yeah, oh man, it's all happening.
It is.
I mean, it really is like a very very very rapid plip. But it's getting weirder and weirder. Molly, I think it's like a I.
Don't know, you mispronounced stupider and more depressing.
I don't know, we get that a shutdown conversation and like just just right after we get coming up from New Year's break. So I mean, if you.
Like that, thank you, Evan, of course.
Molly, thank you. Please help me on as it gets weirder and weirder.
Yes, Evan McMorris Santro is a reporter at Notice. Welcome to Fast Politics, Dave.
Blagle, It's good to be here. Thanks for having me.
We find ourselves and yet an they're incredibly strange but also very stupid moment in American history. You're an intrepid reporter, and you have been intrepidly reporting. What are you seeing? Here's the fundamentally worst question ever in American politics? What are the vibes?
Is that the worst?
Oh?
Okay, I'll roll with that. So they shifted. I guess
that's the worst answer to that question. They did shift, And I wrote it about this last week, and I followed up a little bit this week after I went to Omaha and talked to Democrats in a swingy region there that before Tuesday there was a worry this is very different than eight years ago, a worry that Trump actually was more popular than Democrats, understood that Poles were underrating him, and that he had made games with Latinos and young people that Democrats were not doing good job
of reversing. And you saw this in coverage. I'd say more coverage of New Jersey than Virginia. Reporters going into the field, it's finding that, Okay, we went to a Latino event, they don't seem that excited. Therefore, things that have been moving in Trump's direction, and then the election
happens and they weren't. So you saw that big shift in how Democrats conceive of the electorate and its concerns, which is, if I could sum it up, what we need to do as Democrats is to point out the costs are still high and a bunch of other economic problems are still bad. And Trump didn't fix this, and so he hit us with She's for them and he's for you. We're going to him with my Republican opponent is for Trump, and I'm for you. I'm the one who cares about you. This guy is just making money
for himself. He's cutting tax for his friends. Insert the rest of democratic messaging. But what changed is that they weren't sure it was working, and now that thin get.
Is Yeah, I'm going to tell a story that sounds tangential, but I actually think is really relevant. I have a friend who's a very smart strategist. He's very smart, but I think he's a little bit centrist in a way that I think is a little bit destructive. But I heard him on a podcast saying voters are so angry that Biden is going to lose and we're going to have backlash to backlash to backlash. Basically like voters are just going to they don't have patience, so they'll kick
one person out and then they'll kick that. They'll change so quickly they'll be bodship to bib ship to bid ship. Is that what's happening here?
That was the concern. And specifically, let's say that everyone, if you average of everyone's media consumption of politics, the country is less trusting of institutions than it was at any point in modern history. Enterplayed mass media history and that benefits Republicans. That was the worry for Democrats is that occasionally we're going to be the party that's not in power, and we can exploit that. When we're in power, we don't know how to make people stop rejecting us.
And so this was a lot of the angst about Biden. And I covered this over the course of the year. Ye's not over, but I think most debates were mostly happening before November. Hey, we Democrats, we reponsible Democrats tried this with Joe Biden. We did a bunch of populous stuff and it didn't benefit us. So gosh, maybe we're stuck in a backlash loop. Like you were saying forever, and I don't think that was changed by the election.
But Democrats in Virginia, New Jersey, in New York all have opportunities to deliver something in the context to don Trump being president trying to undermine them. And so what was really powerful for Mamdannie and Cheryl more than well the whole year for Demo president In Virginia, the fact that Trump was was firing federal workers was toxic Republicans. They never came up with an answer. They punted, they got destroyed. In New Jersey and New York, it was
more direct. The President out of spite, is going to be cutting things. New York and New Jersey was expecting things they paid through the tax dollars paid for. So New York was suing all year and I mean, you know this suing all year for just funding that the city had received that the administration wanted to take back. In New Jersey, it was the Gateway tunnel. Trump in a snit was just going to cancel this funding that the state fought twenty years for. That threat is going
to continue existing. And so this is a new dynamic for Democrats is the parties in power in a bunch of places. It's going to try to do things and Trump will be they're undermining it. And will voters say, we wish you would change your policy and just agree with Trump, or will they say, dang, I wish Trump was not screwing this up. Is it giving them not in the jail out, get out of jail free card, but something to say if let's say, in four months, mom,
Donnie's entire agenda has not been in place. Yeah, I think it does. And Republicans experienced us under Biden. It was easier for their incumbents even to get elected with a very few exceptions under Joe Biden because they could say, look, I'm greag ab but I'm trying to fix the border, and this administration screwing with me a less intense versus of that, I think happening. Fewer people being trafficked in buses across state lines, but I see that happening already.
And I want to repeat myself too much from the first question, But there was a year Democrats not being sure if that was true. But maybe maybe it turns out that voters do think Trump is right. And you saw this in New York right away because I from
the story I wrote yesterday or for Wednesday. I talked to people who've been on the Spikey Cheryl campaign and then we're going to work for Kathy Hogel, and they this is at least to Fanic was not that threatening to them on Tuesday last week, very much less so on Wednesday, because it looks like she's just going to defend the Trump agenda even if it hurts the state, and that's a terrible place Republicans to be. They figured that out.
Yes, I think that's right. Has there ever been a politician with worse timing than a least to phonic.
Maybe Hillary Quittin and Kamala Harris because they both Hillary and then Kamala in twenty nineteen ran at the one time in history when being a Democrat who was tough on crime was bad. Maybe that first Stephanic. She's one of many House members who are going to run statewide this next year. The leading candidates for governor of Iowa for governor of Wisconsin the Republican primary have been in Congress, voting for Republican priorities in Congress and against Democratic bills.
She has done the same thing, but in a much more intense way, and her campaign. I don't know if if she is an auxiliary of the New York Post or the New Ropost and auxiliary for every day her campaign is basically at least dephonics said something terrible at HOKL. But when your post has a feature on it and then the campaign puts out what the New York Posts said, a bottles to phonic, that was always going to exist. But is this a bad cycle to be a Republican
on record for their whole agenda? It looks like it kind of is, because what was the benefit from the tax bill so far Republicans If they all voted for the tax bill this summer in bluespates, that means they could say, hey, I cut your taxes with the salt deduction. They did fine in Nassau County and that's it. I mean,
they got they got pretty creamed. And the rest of New York, certainly in the high tax parts of New Jersey, Morris County is the sort of place that it's full of people who want, we're going to use that salt deduction. And it had been a Republican and it flipped to Mikey Sheryl again, I compare a lot of stuff in twenty seventeen twenty eighteen, because I think Democrats are in a different position, but Trump is also more eubuistic and
less limited by his advisors. In twenty eighteen, Republicans say, well, at least we have an economic situation that people are not blaming Trump for. It's pretty good where you can run on that no matter what other things blow up for Trump and immigration was really their biggest weakness in twenty eighteen. Now Republicans are a week if you look at polling on who's handling the economy? Did are their policies helping you? And they're just pretending that they're not.
They're pretending to hear Republicans. It's the Scott Bessett line. It's all going to be great yet next year, don't worry about it. Now, there's a little bit of punitory saying, well, that's exactly what Joe Biden was doing four years ago. It didn't work. Biden had an okay midterm considering.
I mean, part of the problem for Biden was the way overperformed in the midterms, and that gave him confidence to run again.
Yes it duh. So the economy though might one people see they didn't see Biden at that point, and over time they blamed him for inflation, even after inflation had gone back down. But in polvan And said who's responsible for the econmy Biden and wagging Trump already owns that,
and Trump wanted to own it. Trum Trump that talks about the golden age of America beginning on his inauguration day and talked about how great the economy was all year, and in the same interview they'll say that things are better and also if they're bad, it's Joe Biden's fault. This is the JD. Dvance line we inherited and Joe Biden but fully suggests the voters don't think that. And you're seeing the most significant response to that since the
election has been the administration rolling back some tariffs. Are saying it's going to and not saying sorry, we're wrong, that the terroriffs actually cost you money and they're unpopular, but saying to lower prices. We're going to get rid of these tariffs. Who knows who put them in there.
I mean, it's not like Trump has been on the record just musing about how great tariffs are all the time.
Yes, and that turned out to be unpopular. So really, like in New Jersey and Virginia, I was giving Democrats. And the piece I've written since the election is that I think I said just that the interest of journalists and candidates are often at odds, and journalists wanted the Democrats to have more exciting messages to write and new
responses to Republicans. And also you saw this, I'm not really being negative at the Year Times, but you saw a one year Time story by Shing Goldmacher a couple weeks for the election about demograph are still running around about Trump? Are they ever feeding the mistakes of the past?
Does it work?
Does it work? And yes? The reason it worked is because Trump was taking credit for a great economy and voters thought, actually, tariffs are costing me too much, and everything else is costing me too much, So I don't want to vote for the park. He's taking credit for this economy and it's too late. You already see people blaming them for just prices not being that simple. Now.
There are layoffs that people who have been laid off or unhappy about, but the main one is just he said prices would go down, he cleaned they were down already. They weren't, so he's just going to keep saying it, and he's the well part where he is. I think analogus to Biden is the bidenminstration would say, Hey, good news, everybody. This one good that has been famously too expensive is now much less expensive and people didn't care anymore. Oh
we fixed the baby formula outage. Nobody cared. That is one thing they have in common that even Trump can't benefit. If people are angry about something, and you're angry about goes away, nobody says thank you, President for fixing it. He's better at advertising than Biden, but hasn't really done anything for him.
I also think the problem for him is there is a reason why politicians don't promise undoable things, and that's because a lot of political gravity that didn't apply to Trump is sort of catching up with him, right. Like he used to be able to say stuff and no one would ever be like, well what about But it does seem like now there's you said tariffs were great. Now everything's more expensive, you know what I mean? Like there seems to be some amount of political gravity catching up to him.
Yeah, I'm obsessed. I don't think I wrote about this week except for social media. I'm obsessed with how the deministration will keep floating that people are going to get three months either a rebate check from Doze or from teriffs or the terroriffs. From that positim than anything. And before we got on, I was just checking my email and indep I have a fundraising email. I'm on a couple fundraising lists. Is to see what they get. What people who donate to the CAAAN it's get not they donate.
I just signed up. It's psychotic. Don't do it unless you're reporter. But yesterday I have If you are a donor to Donald Trump, you got an email saying would you accept a terror rebate check signed by Trump? And I do think it's starting. I watch a lot of local news, partly because that's where campaigns are advertising and
spending time, and local loser report. How there are a lot of segments, and there have been all year, but in the last week since this terror frebate discussion began, segments that are just a version of the President says he might send out a check. What would it look like. We talked to an expert about whether you're going to get your check after a while. I think it's reasonable for people to say I am unhappy because I thought i'd get a check and I did not. That's what it's happening too.
That's a fundamental problem with Trump is is he has only a couple of ideas, and he's like, well, send people money that work during COVID, but there's not a mechanism for that. We got to talk about the shutdown. So it feels like the Democrats in the House did actually stay together, you know. I mean Mike Johnson helped them in a certain way by never bringing them back,
and it was the Senate that caved. Now, I from someone who has covered the Senate deems the way that this vote went down to have only people were up for reelection in twenty thirty, people who were retiring, and people who were not necessarily in danger voting to reopen the government seemed a little bit too cute, I have in my mind. Then, to have the Senate majority leader vote now and give a long speech, it felt as if the vibes were Chuck wanted to end the shutdown.
That is fair. I've not been my colleague Burgess ever it and other people who covered a Senate more closely and daily than I do have gotten the feedback on this. So it's fair to say that Schumer and other Democrats were pushed into this shutdown strategy that they did not fully support, and they were surprised how well it works.
That is, and they turned it down in March, right, and then they got so much pushback they had to go along with it.
One they got pushed back. I think also importantly, and you've talked about this, is that in March the idea of a lot of holdouts he did not want to do a shutdown was if do a shutdown, russ vote is going to fire a bunch more people because he wants to do that anyway. And they learned over the course of the year that russ vote was just gonna
just fire people anyway. They actually did get well. One of the only things they got as a benefit from ending the shutdown is officially that there's not gonna be any more reduction the force while the government shut down.
Now in the law, there shouldn't have been any reductions of forces during the shutdown anyway, but that changed everything where Democrats said, we actually have a president who's just going to try to fire people try to cut funds, do it before court stops them, and then if the court stops them, it's too late. That changed everything, and I think that's gonna that's gonna That mindset will be there for the next impass in January. I'm already predicting
an impass over over healthcare funding. They also became convinced that if you're a Democrat, wanted to be over and I actually Timillary has expressed this, I think better than a lot of Democrats had, is well, you've changed the conversation to healthcare, right, which yeah, yeah, and you got things queued up for the Epstein discharge petition, which is an advantage. So you should just take this win and go on because you're not going to get something out.
And that, to me is credible because there's no shutdown the part in order to shut to the end the shutdown, the President just gave the House or the holdouts whatever they wanted. That's that's not crazy. But for the Schumer role in it was that definitely that he was pushed by both progressives and by reality and he was talking to Robins trying to make a scandal out of this, but he was taught, he was in contact with progressive groups like Indivisible to Move On that were saying, please
shut the government down? Should he not be? I guess the idea there is that Democrats should not listen to their interest groups. But the end that's true, that that is true, and those same interest groups are going to want a new leader. But not to write Schumer's biography for him. But the role of him as leader for the next few weeks or a few years is going to be losing a bunch of Donald Trump, maybe winning the Senate and then maybe facing pressure. I actually already
facing pressure AT's retire next year. So it's like being being the Senate leader is not a great is not a great place to suddenly come in and dominate and run your party's agenda. If did Bernie Sanders is in the party leadership, like undermining you, that's part of a job.
Didn't he say that he was going to not run for reelection.
He didn't say that.
He hasn't He hasn't come out and said it.
No.
So what happened with Biden was that Biden's team in twenty nineteen let word go out for some reporters that hey, he was considering a one term pledge, and so people who wanted to think Biden would run for one term got some got something to hang on. And I'm not trying to insall he'll for not memorizing ever news article, but that became like didn't I read one somewhere that he probably one term?
It really did help him when because he could make a case that maybe it was that Trumpian thing of being a roar shack, right, you'll be whatever is wanted.
Yes, and that Schumer has not been that definitive. It did just that people in New York politics looking at his calendar, which includes Schumer used to be famous for going to every county in the state every year. He has not done that discycle. So he he turns seventy five this month, he turned seventy six after the midterms. Would he be announcing in twenty twenty seven that he wants to run for reelection That would take him into
his mid eighties. That's the assumption. So does he want to say I Chuck Schumer right now, want to give up my leverages leader and say that I got bullied out of this job by move on? Yeah? Probably not, but the invisible I guess job application going on for Senate leader. That's already been happening, and part of it is people in New York saying we don't think Schuber's going to run it again. There's so many different angles on this, but I want to get too tangential about
who would replace Humor. That's already happening because a lot of people think he's not going.
To run, who would replace Schuma.
So a lot of conversations about aoc NO in leadership. In leadership, Brian Schottz Center for What Hawaii has done most of the work to get himself ready for that compared to other people Amy Clover Shard in the leadership and would be in the position. No one else has been making moves that way, especially because I do think there are their discrepancies between what progresses want the job
to be what the job ends up being. And so a lot of progresses say, why can't we have the most progressive fighter we have in the Senate every day leading the messaging and the counterpoint. B Well, that's not Republicans have Republicans didn't say, look at the Senate, we need somebody like Josh Hawley or Rick Scott to lead us. Rick Scott rand he lost. You have to be kind
of a sin eater in the job. You have to be there for awful deals, and you have to if you let's say there's a big Senate if Democrats have a great Senate election in the midterms and they win, Sharon Brown wins the seat, and Mary Paul Tola and Alaska wins and they get everything, they get almost everything they want to. But there's a new demograph from Iowa. Some of them are just not going to vote with Progresses on everything, and so you'll need some of these.
So I'm not trying to That is why shots who got elected as a progressive, he was appointed to the seat and then got reelected with the supported Progresses over a more conservative candidate. He's already been willing to buff progressive on some issues, and that's why people think, all right, well he's ready. He's getting himself ready to win if he runs for leader. His colleagues, including conative more conservative Democrats, to say, great.
Yeah, Dave Wigo, I hope you'll come back.
Oh yeah, thanks for having me. All these post election periods are we actually have data? Really are great, so happy to do it. They're no more pfectly.
Jesse cannon Somali Trump and his administration as a weapon they're just so thrilled to use against anyone whoever wronged them. And friend of the show, Congressman Eric Swolwell is the latest victim of their weapon. He just announced today that he's going to be running for governor of California and they're going to go after him for mortgage fraud.
Bill Pulti works in the Trump administration, and what he does is he finds people who have mortgages, and then he finds enemies of Trump and he puts that Vinn diagram together. And I think that Eric is the fource Democrat that Bill Poulti has accused of mortgage fraud, with
varying degrees of success. But you know, here's the thing about prosecuting people politically, it doesn't have to work and necessarily like it's clearly bullshit, but it doesn't necessarily have to work in order for them to get the Jews from it. So that's what we're seeing here is just a lot of them sort of grasping at straws and trying to get this going. I don't think that they can get any of these going because they've just done
so many, and they've all looked so intentional. So I don't think that Trump world will get to do this. And like, this is one of these things where it's like, thank god they're stupid, because if they had been smart, you know, and they had been like and they had sort of like made up different cases, like some were mortgage fraud and some were this and some were that. Like in Putin's Russia, people get arrested for stuff like
iss right. So I do think that as much as there's a certain amount of this that is scary, it's also so stupid and thank god it's so stupid. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.