George Conway, Adam Nagourney & Kimberly Pope Adams

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 Donald Trump says Republicans eat their young. He actually said it twice. Cognitive decline explanation point. We have an interesting show for you today. Adam mcgurney tells us about his new book that takes us inside the New York Times entitled The Times, How the newspaper of

Which show is this?

It's not a show. We're just having a conversation. No one can hear this, So just tell me everything.

Let's go. Oh, you should have heard at the Starbucks this morning. What happened to me?

We have very exciting lives. Yes, George, you told me something a long time ago.

Absolutely deny that. It's nothing I would ever have said. Senator, I did not. I've never spoken to Molly John as far as I know she's a communist, rides in a Lorna's limousine. Senator, Yes, you don't have the Senator Kennedy in Louisiana.

Yeah, exactly. But so you said to me once Donald Trump is going to I'm sure you remember saying this to me. You said, Donald Trump is going to destroy the entire Republican Party and that's the only way this can end. And I thought, well, maybe, but maybe Liz Cheney or maybe some good guy comes in.

But you know, you're starting to say huh, like almost everything else that George Conway says, it ages.

Well, well listen, we're not going to get into that, but we can say.

For sure the plan is progressing.

It is incredible. I mean, I'm watching this Jim Jordan screaming Steve scalifs again, this is in no way an endorsement.

No, no, you don't have to endorse Steve scali to decide that if you had to spend three hours on a train on the on the Northeast Regional to Louisiana from Washington, would you rather spend it with Jim Jordan Steve Scalise. You know, Steve Scale said the stupid shit about baby or whatever the fucking did right and many years ago, by all accounts, you'd rather spend the time with Steve Scalise, and you know you can talk to him.

If you're a Republican donor, Are you going to write a check to Jim Jordan? And I don't think you are.

You know, he's not their type. Scalice has been doing this for a long time. He knows how to deal with all these people.

They people like him, right, and he's the number two Republican.

Yeah, But I think part of the thing is I think all the wackadoodles realize that he's actually I mean again, I'm not an expert on Congress, but senses he's the type of guy who could cut a deal Democrats on things and actually get stuff and move legislation toward the conservative views to the extent they still have a conservative.

View, which I'm not sure they really do. I think they just sort of it's all about grand standing for most of them. And I think that's why these a lot of these people won't vote for him, is because he's not the grand standing type Jordan is going to be.

It's like going to be open. Jordan has to be the choice of a bobird and a green and a Gates because he's one of them. Scalis is actually he was a legislator. He is a legendarator. He may not like what he wants to legislate, but he actually is a legislator. Right when he was shot, you know, the Democrats were upset about that. Yeah.

No, he's got a relationship with Cedric Richmond. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't think they want to see arm befall Jim Jordan. I think, but I don't think the outpouring of sympathy would be as great if the coyote dropped the anvil on Jim Jordan tomorrow.

So last night, the Republicans have vote. Jim Jordan got less votes, but Steve Scullies dropped out.

Yeah, how does that work?

That's not how it's supposed to work. The person with more votes. I'm just going to tell you a little secret about maths.

Because you don't understand the modern Republican mentality, which is, if I don't get what I want, then fuck you here. If you have more votes, you cheated. Something happened, and I'm gonna you know, I'm gonna do anything to stop you, even though you got more votes, because that's not the way things work. We don't live in a country where people who win arguments and get more votes get to carry the day and get elected. We live in a country where I get what I want, or I go

You're talking about Trump here. What is interesting here is so Nancy Mays. You may remember her as being the really is she seems to be auditioning for Donald Trump's vice president his girl Friday.

It seems more like she's auditioning for some club in Miami or something.

She wore a shirt with an A because and.

Then the next day she wore a corsette.

Right for adultery.

I mean, I don't have a problem with that, obviously I do.

When she was on with Jake Tapper on CNN, she said that many Democrats actually trust Jim Jordan more than Steve Scalise, which is absolutely the most batshit thing I've ever heard of my life, and just a lie.

Right, Well, I mean, look, I haven't talked to Democrats and conducted a focus group of Democrats.

I have.

I mean, I interview a gazillion Democratic Congress people all the time, and there's never, ever.

Ever, no I said before, if you're going to spend three hours on a train, you'd rather spend it with Steve Scalice than.

Jordan, exactly, ask his wrestlers. So I want to like just sort of go through the nuts and bolts here. There's going to be another meeting. By the way, yesterday they were talking about one of the people in the meeting, one of the Congress people, a lesser known backbencher, was saying that people should just write down their top ten choices, and I was like, so, ranked choice voting.

Ranked choice voting is not something they want because it would you know, if you applied it to them, they'd all.

Lose, right exactly. So this will be airing on Monday. On Monday, I'm going to bet you, we're going to you and I are going to take a ten million dollar bet. Right now, they will still not have.

A speaker, and the only way they're going to have a speaker by Monday.

Is oh, I want to hear this.

I think through the use of violence, hostage taking. I don't know, and I don't know that this could or would happen, but you know, I mean, I think the Democrats are dangling the book. It's like, if you are really sick of these people and you want to fuck

Oh yeah, that seems like a good choice.

Yeah, you just say, okay, the Speaker will exercise his authority in the following manner with respect to think there'll be a committee of reasonable people who will discuss like, okay, the Democrats get so many things they can bring to the floor. These moderate Republicans who have cut the deal or the sense will probably get some stuff too that

The thing that would doom this and it's why Republicans are now setting themselves on fire is that the base cannot stomach the idea. Remember Kevin McCarthy was removed because he refused to crash the American economy.

That's what I'm saying is that thirty percent of the I mean, I don't know, some percentage of the publican basis significant portion enough to cause many people to fear a loss in a primary. The most motivated course is like any form of compromise with the enemy, the mortal enemy of the people, the people who want everybody to be looking at you in the bathroom, regardless of their gender or whatever. You know, the things that they're obsessed with,

Right, So that's a pot You can't kind of deal with the people you need to win on anything more than a Republican primary.

Because it's like, if I can't get what I want, I'm going to destroy the world for everyone else. It's a very terroristic view of the world, and it's a slippery slope to the mentality of loss of democracy and violence. It is worth doing your self harm and your children harm so long as they don't get what they want.

So let's talk about this studment. We have Mackaid's. He removed Kevin McCarthy. It was probably the greatest moment of his life. I cannot something give Jonah from VEEP right when he shuts down the government because he is mad about daylight savings time. Now Gates is saying he would rather have scale than McCarthy. And even though he doesn't necessarily want Scalice, he definitely doesn't want McCarthy. Like, there's no way to make this look like a win.

No, unless they all of a sudden agree magically on someone who commands some respect among their entire caucus and even outside the caucus. This has been a big black eye in their favor. This is just the kind of chaos that people don't really like, except for the people who want Those want chaos and they don't really care about anything, and you know they're nihilistic.

You've been involved in this party for a long time. You've been involved in the legal the Federal Society Crew for a long time, had some success there with the judiciary. We're not going to talk about it, but a little bit cranky about it, But I mean, how would you walk this back?

You have this party that goes back to the point that you started with, which is the party has to be completely demolished and started. We have to start from scratch. And I think it gets there. I think Trump has led it there. I think the nihilism that he has encouraged is eating it there. I mean, you even have all the Republican candidates now going after Trump about him talking about hezblav being smart and all that stuff, and

The thing I'm so struck by. Desanta's not going to be the nominee. It seems very unlikely he's going to be the nominee because he's so bad at this. But it doesn't seem like the Desanta's people have decided that Trump is their guy.

No, they're turning up the volume, I think partly out of desperation. But nobody likes Trump.

Right, But he's going to be the nominatee.

Yes, unless he drives his golf cart into some of the water hazard or something and can't float to the surface because he's too heady.

You're going to get in trouble for that.

I did not I didn't say I want that to happen. I'm just saying highly unlikely, saying service will fish him out, right, they.

Will fish him out. But he has all of these trials, and maybe he's able to kick the can on a lot of them. But he's still going to have that DC trial with Judge Chuck in Well.

I think there's a high probability that he will be a convicted felon by election day twenty twenty four, and it's quite possible he might be incarcerated by that.

I don't think he'll be incarcerated, but I could see him trying.

I think that there's a chance. As somebody tweeted the other day, basically, the raccoons really have chewed through all the wires, any wires that were left in his brain, I mean, just washed some of the stuff. I wish we could put him on television twenty four hours.

A day now, I know, right right now, Oh no, don't you're giving him all exce No, no, no, put him on because he's so off the wall saying that Barack Obama his president, saying that does Blah was smart, calling humas hummos smart words.

He is more incoherent and more wacky than ever before. I think people need to see that, and I think that's ultimately what brings him down. And I think that the more people mock him for that, the crazier you will get, which is the point I made in New York on Wednesday at the TNR summit. The only question is I mean he is going to destroy the Republican Party. I've said that. I think he's going to destroy the

And I don't thank you George Conway, the best, the apologies to jay Z, thank you, thank you all right, ninety night. Adam mcgourney covers national politics for The New York Times and is the author of the Times How the Newspaper of Records Survived, Scandal, Scorn, and the Transformation of journalism. Welcome to Fast Politics, Adam.

Thanks for having me, Mallya. I'm very happy to be here.

Let's talk about this book. There are sort of books where everyone I know is sort of talking about it, reading it, and this is one of those books. The Times, How the newspaper of records survived, scandal, scorn, and the transformation of journalism. First, why did you write this book? Like where did you sort of decide that this was what you wanted to spend your life doing.

Just rolling back a little bit, if you had known me, like when I was in college, I always wanted to work at the Times. I always kind of found it a fascinating place. I read Gay Talicia's book about The Times in nineteen sixty nine. I toined the paper in nineteen ninety six, and you know, it's kind of I'm not quite sure how it came to be, but certainly it came to me at a certain point that this

I really wanted to do.

And you know, I sort of thought about it for a long time and then it spent about seven years doing it.

You're still at the Times too.

I'm still with the paper.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's not an authorized book.

You know.

When I first had the idea, I went to the publisher at the time, Arthur Sulzberger Junior, and asked if he would cooperate, if I would do a book, in other words, sit down and talk to me, because I thought, Molly, that would be pretty critical. And he thought about it for a few weeks and he came back to me and said, yes, I will do this, but I'm not going to tell anyone else what to do. What I did not realize I should have was the second that

Putting this book together.

It is a little bit scary, though, to write a book about your employer.

Absolutely.

One thing that made it a little a little bit more manageable because I really thought about do I need to leave right? Is I end the book in twenty sixteen. And there are two reasons why, Moley. The first part is I found that post twenty sixteen, when you're writing about stuff that's more contemporary.

It's harder to put it into perspective.

Right, I could talk to you at length about what the meaning of Judas Miller was.

It's harder to get people to be candid.

All the people I was interviewed were mostly out of the paper, and you can't really get access to the kind of internal documents that I think power the rest of the narrative. The other reason was I didn't want to be writing about people that I work for or with, So I think two exceptions. Ag Solzberger is now the publisher. He's a player earlier on in the book, but I

But generally that was a big factory.

It maybe more comfortable in what is obviously a difficult, tricky kind of endeavor.

Right.

There is a history of writing about the times. It's sort of well worn path.

Right. There's been a bunch of memoirs.

In my opinion, there's two main books, the to Least Book and the books that Alex Jones and Susan Tiff wrote about the Sulzburger family. I'm not in any way minimizing the other books, but those me were the two greatest books that were written. Alex and Susan focused on the Sulzburger family more than the paper. Gay focused more in the newsroom. This is the newsroom of the pre nineteen sixty nine New York Times, so they felt like there was a big opening to write about what had happened.

The other thing is, and I didn't realize this.

When I started the book. When I first started doing this, I did not know how the book would add. I did not know of the New York Times would even exist, or at least exist in the forum that we knew it back in twenty sixteen.

As it turned out, there was a.

Story to tell here about the transition of the paper into a digital newspaper, both as a way of making money but also as a way of presenting the news. I didn't realize that at the time, but that turned out to me. You'll see a central kind of element or spy to the book.

You said that you weren't even sure of the Times would exist, And even though the Times is now pretty much the biggest game in town. There was a time when it seemed like it might. And in fact, you know, I come from the nineties, even though I was younger than but there are a lot of newspapers and magazines that I came of age writing for and reading that no longer exist.

Right, The New York pub is one of the few remaining big city newspapers there's, if I can describe it that way, that are still powerful, have a huge readership and really kind of influenced journalism. Like all these newspapers

To cover built with it.

So the Times as the field more to itself, along with obviously the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, but it's become a much smaller market unfortunately.

Yeah, And I think what's really important what you talk about is this idea that what the Times did. Was it sort of smartly was able to tack Can you talk about that?

I mean, it's interesting because The Times is such an institutionalist paper and resistant to change.

And one thing I.

Realized as I was researching this is that it was resistant to change but also open to change. It wasn't as sort of like as easy as story as like these stodgy old men, because that's what it was in the early days, saying no to anything. They were willing to change. The two main things that happened though, were actually the main thing was that the publisher, Artur Solzberger Junior,

I mean, it's interesting because it's like so many people did not see the future, and there, you know, I mean I was so I mean really, a lot of newspapers a magazine seeded to tech companies and let them take over, which is how we're in this mass.

Absolutely, and the Times, to its credit, slow, making a lot of mistakes slow on the way, got there, and they know they didn't do it cleanly, but they got there.

They sort of realized the way the world was changing. Two ways.

One was the revenue model. Right now is a subscriber first newspaper. It's no longer reliant on advertisers, which obviously can't be anymore. And second of all, you pick up before every day and they just present stories in a whole different way the print newspaper. The whole paper used to be defined around the print newspaper or the front page, and the editors now have made an aggressive effort to

But I also think this idea that they have multiple front pages now is pretty interesting.

Yeah, I mean, this is an interesting he raise an interesting question here.

What thing that I always liked about The Times and the Times front page was the curation A bunch of presumably very smart for people telling me, hey, these are the seven stories you have to read, or the six stories, even though one of them might seem real, eat your pees, you know what I mean? Well, you know, there's much more churn on the homepage, like, for example, like you know today we have the turmoil in the Mideast. There's I think last time I looked six or seven stories

It's just a little bit more texture.

Yeah, and the idea that they really did bring in podcasts too, which turned out to be a very smart move.

It's funny.

I saw one of the podcasters, Michael Barbara, the other night, and it reminded me that I was involved, like and years ago, fifteen years ago, I can't remember what it was called, but some kind of honestly super lame podcasts efver And you look back on it and it was so amateur hour, right, And then you look at where they end up now, and it's like pretty remarkable that sort of sophistication and how important podcasts are to the Times sort of offering.

So it's really interesting the way they grew up.

Yeah, I mean, you don't know something is popular until it is right. You don't know's I mean, you just have to keep sort of feeling around in the dark. But I have this theory about the New York Times, which is that everybody reads it, so everybody gets mad at it, right, I mean, do you think that's true. Do you feel like you guys get more scrutiny than everybody else?

I do? I do, And I am not sure that's such a bad thing.

You go through ways over the decades where people love hate the New York Times, right, and the paper clearly comes under a lot of criticism for mistakes that it made Iraq right, and I guess I said that more

Or got off, you know. And I think that's a good thing.

And is you know, when you're at the front, when you're in the middle of it, when you're getting lots of emails or slag on Twitter for getting something off or wrong, is it exhausting, yet is it ultimately helpful? Yeah, you know it is right, because again we should be accountable in the same way that paper holds other people account.

Yeah, it's an interesting phenomenon I think a lot about Like so, Elon Musk has decided he's going to recreate the mainstream media with just a few of his far right friends doing content moderation, and you really see how hard it is.

That's right.

I'm not going to try to guess what his ultimate goal is. But I think this sort of size of the Times always the intellectual diversity, not quite as much in terms of politics, but intellectual diversity, I think assures that there's slightly more balance at the Times, or at least tempt to be.

We're balanced.

I'm not sure Elard Musk is even aspiring to that. And again the Times that it gets stuff wrong, it always has throughout the course of this history. But I do think generally their aspirations its aspirations are pretty clear, which is try to present the news that old phrase without fear of favor.

Right. We do see the importance of the many layers that the Times has, and we have that vanu Fair too, fact checking and lawyers and not to get back to this Elon must thing, but Elon Musk had these decided that he was going to tweet this I feel like is really important because we're in this information situation where more more important than ever, there needs to be some ability to trust the sources that we're getting news from.

I mean, I saw that and I was kind of shocked by that. Let's assume that he made a mistake. Who knows, there are many you know, I guess like a vanity fair or every place. There are many layers at the New York Times to prevent that kind of stuff from happening, as we both know some sides it does. But you know, there's a standards desk, and there's all kinds of editors, and like that's why I'm always a little bit dubious about how much that was a mistake

Yeah. The other thing that I think is pretty interesting is that we have this sort of backlash. There was a time during you know, twenty sixteen where subscribing to The New York Times was considered to be a act of resistance, right, and there were these TV commercials and there was a feeling that you know, this was and then after Trump left office there was sort of certainly like a slightly more nuanced political reporting, and there was a certain level of fury there. Do you think and discuss?

Yeah, you know what I remember right after that election, there was a after Trump bought in twenty sixteen, there was a lot of anger at the Times, right because a lot of readers felt that we had not covered

Important, supposely, And again, like I don't totally trust a lot of this stuff because I don't feel like we have such great polling apparatuses anymore. Don't tell the many pollsters I have on this podcast, who I like a lot. But I do feel like from some of the polling I've seen, it shows that mainstream media distrust is at its highest levels. And I mean, certainly Trump was able to lay the groundwork for that, but I also think social media plays a role there too.

Yeah, you know, you.

Could see over the course of this book the decline in public trust of the media and the New York Times, And I agree with you about the problems of polling these days, but let's you know, The Times deserves some

Book we saw this case against CNN being made by Trump too. You know, the idea is to work the reps and undermine the trust. But this is quite important and interesting and I really appreciate you joining us.

Adam, my pleasure. Thank you very much.

Kimberly Pope Adams is a Democratic state delegate candidate for Virginia's eighty second district. Welcome to Fast Politics. Kimberly Pope Adams.

Hello, thank you for having me.

So let's talk. You're a Democratic nominee for VIA's House District eighty two. Virginia is is the center of the action. It is a big important swing state. Talk to me about what's going on.

Oh, yes, it is because this race is really the deciding factor in what happened in the South for our reproductive freedoms. Because Virginia is the last state, We're the last state haven in the South for women's reproductive access. So it is so very important that our people get out to vote and make sure our voices are heard.

So you are running in the House, the VA House. The situation right now in Virginia is you have Young Cain is the governor. You have a Republican House of Delegates and a Democratic state House. If Democrats lose the state House, Young Cain can turn Virginia into Florida. Okay, So yes, we have a Republican governor. We currently have a Republican majority in the House of Delegates, but we do. Democrats do have a slim majority in the States Senate.

But we obviously will not allow that to happen because if Republicans were to get the trifect it would just reverse all of the progress that we've made over the years. So clearly cannot allow that to happen.

And one of the things we were just talking about before we started recording is that in Virginia, because Democrats were for a time had the governorship and the House of Delegates and the state Senate, you guys started a forty five day early voting window, which is incredible, and it's incredible for working people for whom a Tuesday is not. Taking a Tuesday off to wait online is not an option exactly.

And that's so important because personally, I'm the daughter of a union worker, so I grew up in a very middle class, blue collar household. And you're right, Tuesdays from six am to seven pm for some people is their entire work day. So we were so fortunate in Virginia when we did have the trifecta, Democrats were able to impose forty five days of early voting. So it's about, you know, access, and that's really what democracy is about.

That said, there is early voting right now and it has been going on.

Yes, Early voting in Virginia started on September twenty second.

Do you think that people understand just how dangerous not even dangerous, but dangerous Glenn Youngkin is. And I was hoping you could talk a little bit about what's happening with the voter roles.

Thank you so much for asking, because what is happening currently in Virginia is that our governor of Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin and his administration, they have begun removing names from the voter rule. And it's no secret to Democrats why they're doing this, because Republicans know that their agenda is so extreme and so unpopular that the only thing they can do is to keep people from making their voices heard. And they do that by trying to keep

Right and explain to me she is the incumbent.

Yes, she is the incumbent. Two years ago we lost this seat narrowly five hundred twelve votes, so we know that this seat is historically blue, even though the incumbent is not.

Okay, So this is like what's happened in New York State where we've had Republicans win in six seats that should be Biden seeds. Like this is a This is one of these situations where it's clearly it's a blue seat or it should be a blue seat.

Exactly, this is absolutely a blue seat, and we'll be this November.

Do Democrats just take their eye off the ball, like what happened? And do you think that the Democratic Party now is getting its shit together when it comes to this.

Well, and I'll tell you, like I said before in twenty nineteen, Democrats had the trifecta. We had both chambers of the General Assembly along with the governor's mansion. And admittedly we perhaps were a bit comfortable going into twenty one and by losing this seat and others in the State House, what that taught us is that we can never take our foot off the gas. So to your point, are we getting our shit together? Yes, we have our shit together, and we are and we are very much

Away our rights.

We can't let that happen.

Exactly, do you feel like Democrats are getting out to vote? Do you feel like there's a groundswell. Do you think that voters understand what's at stake here?

Oh? Absolutely, and listen, I'm not doors every single day, and when I'm not doors, people are telling me that they're scared, And the reason they're scared is because they know when it comes to women's reproductive freedom, when it comes to abortion rights in Virginia, they know if they allow Republicans to take away this right, then what's next. You know what's next? Is it LGBTQ plus rights? Is

Why do you think that Democrats have this tendency to kind of get passionate and then back off and then get back This is something I as a Democrats struggle with.

Well, I wouldn't say that we become passionate and then back off. Sometimes our focus may shift. But what I've discovered in my district especially, is that the issues that are important to us have always been important to us in all fays will be so while the DOMS decision has allowed us to reprioritize, the main issues are the same.

Core issues are the same.

We are still fighting for reproductive freedom, we are still fighting for our public schools. We are still fighting for faith communities, you know, communities free of gun violence. So, like I said, while while Democrats may have reprioritized, which they see as our outward effort, trust me, the priorities are still me.

Yeah. And I think like if young kin and Republicans are able to take over Virginia, it will mean women will not be able to get abortions in Virginia, and so the abortion desert will grow.

Yes, because like I said, we are the last safe haven in the South. We are the last state in the South that has not imposed for restrictions since the overturning of Roe. So you're right, if Republicans were to win this trifecta, it would be detrimental not just to Virginia, but to all of those bordering states. I mean, we have women driving up Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina driving over for Kentucky, Tennessee because of the fact that we

I think about how how important these state elections really are. We've seen over the last you know, since Trump came to power, how much these small conservative state houses have created bills and changed Roe would not have been overturned had it not been for SBA and conservative activists have really been able to kind of permeate these state houses.

Yes, you're right, it shows us how important, as you said, how important these state elections are. Like I said, in Virginia, there is no all year, and I believe the overturning of Row really showed us, you know, glaringly that we cannot ignore our local elections. I mean all the way down to school board. Okay, we need to make sure that every time something is on the ballot that we make our boys heard.

Yeah, it's just such an important point. So tell me what your race looks like and sort of what your plan is for the next couple of weeks.

The sword answer is not doors, not doors, not doors, because there is no better way to learn the needs and concerns of the district than by asking. I mean, I can't go to Richmond and fight for you if I don't know what you need. So for the next weeks, my emphasis is on knocking doors. And actually I mean anyone who wants to come down and.

Help with that.

They are more than welcome to because if you visit my website Keim Adams for VA dot com, but it's all letters, no numbers. Hey, I am A D, A M. S F O r VA dot com. You could sign up to camp list, you could sign up to postcard to letter write, and you can also make donations on that site because at this point, voter outreach and voter contact is crucial because we need to make sure that we show up, we show up in big numbers, and we send on that message that extremists in Virginia will not win.

Yeah, I think that is really important. And you're knocking on doors, you're still raising money and raising runners for this race.

Absolutely. Fundraising is a critical component of any election, especially this one because Governor Glenn Youngin has made it clear that he is bearing no expense on this racing. He very much meets this seat in order in order to boost his own political aspirations perhaps in the future. But again, like I said, fundraising is important. My opponent it's spending at this point over a million dollars on TV ads. So again my website, him Adams four VA dot com is how you can help us in this fight.

Thank you so much, Kimberly. I hope you'll come back.

Oh, thank you so much for having me. Please let me know when you want me back, and I'll be here.

A moment.

Jessie Cannon Boni, John Fast, I am so upset. We have to talk about Jim Jordan all the time because, as Rick Wilson said on the podcast, well man has rabies.

And looks like he has rabies. He doesn't have them rabies. This is how we don't get soon. Jim Jordan does not technically have rabies. Sure he looks like he has it, but he doesn't actually have it. Ladies and gentlemen discuss.

He's forcing a floor vote for speakership on Tuesday. What do you see happening here?

So, Jim Jordan. One of my favorite moments in Republican math is they don't have the votes, They never have the votes, and yet they decide to make the votes anyway. So here we had Nancy Pelosi never lost a vote, right, never lost a vote. She never lost a rules vote, she never lost a floor vote because she whipped the votes. Because vote whipping is actually a job. It's a congressional job to be the whip all right, Republicans don't whip votes because math is you know, math is a woke construct.

I'm really looking forward to Chris Ruffo putting everywhere a quote from you that said math is a quoke construct.

Matth is a woke construct. Bitches. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.