George Conway, Amb. Gordon Sondland & Nick Turner

the effect it had on the mid terms. And lastly we are joined by the one and only George Conway for our moment of Fuccory and to talk about former President Trump's stay at a jail run for President gambit. But first we are joined by editor in chief of The Recount, Slade Sommer. Welcome to Fast Politics, Slade. It is always a pleasure to be year and I cannot wait to discuss some stories with you. We are giddy today because we had the mid terms. The Republicans do

they even yet officially control the House? I don't think it's official, but you're stuck at to eighteen, I think right, And yeah, I don't think it's official, but I think it's as as solid as can be Yeah, they're going to control the United States Congress by two three seats, right, yeah, probably three or five seats. But I will say something we did at the recap yesterday. These things fluctuate within

each Congress. It is entirely possible that with some reservations and some debts and you know, all that kind of maccab you never know, special elections, there was no red wave. Very disappointing. Turns out, shockingly, those very right wing trafogar poles done by the guy with the mustache and the bow tie, those were not very good pole, not very good calls at all. It's pretty wild. I feel like I saw that he had Peter Welch in a runoffof

like heat. You'll remember Peter Welch being the congressman from Vermont running for the non Bernie Sanders the Pat lay He Senate seat. It was not even close. Yeah it was. I think he was off by thirty seven points, but who's counting. Yeah, you don't look that that's close enough. I mean, you know, the whole idea is just to get close. It's been a rough time for them. They did not win, They did not win back the Senate. They did not now they're going right now, the Senate

is uh. Democrats have fifty seats, Republicans have forty nine seats. On December six, we're gonna see a run off off in Georgia between herschel Walker heard of him, perhaps you've heard of him, and Reverend Warnock herschel Walker. If he gets all of his children to vote for him, it's still not enough. Oh, I don't know. I was gonna say, with the landslide, I don't think so. Yeah. And and it looks like Mitch McConnell's not going to be spending

a bunch of money there or any money. You know, there's gonna be a lot of private money coming in and stuff like that. But this seat is necessary. And the number of times I've been seen people on Twitter and elsewhere saying like, well, as long as we have the fifty, we should be fine. It's like Kirsten Cinema is in an election year. She's now in an election cycle. She did not come out to a single Arizona event supporting anyone in the Democratic Party. She has been seen

cavorting with Republicans. You absolutely need that Georgia seat, like I think anyone who's complacent about this is crazy. But there's also even more minutia, which is that if you have fifty one seed, two have more power on the committees. To absolutely absolutely there's I mean, I think the number of people who fully understand discharged position petitions and committee gamesmanship is one. Yeah, Like, I think that's such a low number. Suffice it to say, you want that fifty

first seed, you really do. Yeah, So let's talk about what's happening. So we got this runoff, it's happening in a little more a little less than a month. Then we have this incredible contest. Now Republicans are there trying to figure out who to blame for what happened, because they're very into blaming. Here are the choices Trump, right, Some of them are blaming Trump voters. A lot of

them are blaming voters not scared enough about crime. I'm sure you saw Jesse Waters saying that single women were to blame. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we we blew that up absolutely. You know, him saying that that single women were captured by the Democratic Party, I think is the way that he said it. We gotta wife those people up, amazing, Yeah, I mean it one might think like a normal party would stop and say, like, I wonder why people hate

our policies, but that is not what's happening here. No, and then the last person I would put on that list is also Mitch McConnell, taking a lot of smoke from the MAGA wing. And you know, the funny thing about that is like they're kind of right, but not for the reasons that they think. Like Mitch McConnell did everything he could to get Republican candidates across the finish line. He actually was a bit of a savior at the

end of the day. The problem with McConnell is he's the guy who ram through a couple of Supreme Court justices that pushed through Doubs. But you know, he's now in a kind of cold war with the guy who we name. We don't say because we don't want to get suited, no, but it rhymes with that's my spiel. Good call. Yeah, yeah, No, I certainly will not say that. You know, he's probably drinking the blood of twinks as

we speak. The thing I thought of, and I never tweeted this because I didn't want to get in trouble, but I'll say it here because you know, I do want to get in trouble. Was that I did think Blake Masters, who is eleven years old, looked a lot like a blood boy. Yeah, he very much had that like Nicholas Holt from mad Max Fury Road thing going on. Well, you know, he's just he is a blood bag what guy Masters? And I'm like, like, this is the poster boy for every kind of under I don't know how

old is he? Forty something? Yeah, like you know every under forty kind of towing the line between maga ridiculousness and like libertarian techno libertarian bullshit. It's quite wild. And you know, the blame game is fantastic. I'm enjoying the

out of this. One of the really interesting speaking of Blake Masters data points is so in Arizona, Blake Masters did not win, and neither did everyone's favorite election denier Filtered former local news anchor Carrie Lake, and so now Republicans instead of being like, wow, ore swing state candidates sucked, they're like, which I think a normal party was there, Like you're seeing so many of these MAGA people being like they were really talented candidates. I hope they run again, really,

I hope they run again too. Yeah, I I certainly hope they run again. You know, it's one of those things where, like the other Mitch McConnell thing here is that he's very on record as saying, you know, candidate quality matters, and everybody really told them to shut the hell up, even liberals, you know, even you know, even people on the left who were saying, like, you know, no, like uh uh, like it doesn't matter. You know, everyone's just gonna vote across party line if they have an

R next to their name. I think I said that too on this very podcast a couple of weeks ago, you know, and and you know, thankfully you know a bunch of these cases, you know that that didn't play out, but you know, the Republican civil war that is gonna unfold over the next you know, two to three weeks, uh, if not longer, when Trumpet to Santa's getting to uh, you know, the big boy fight. Um, this is really

fun to watch. You know. We we should get into the fact that Rick Scott another kind of blood bag seeming gentleman, you know, Rick Spott, he's now fully entering the challenge to McConnell race, the minority leader race, and to bring this back to our Pat Lahey in vocation before Pat Lahy was in all the Batman movies. I am sitting over here with full Joker Heath Letterer Joker paint, saying, away we go. I want to quote young Tommy Tuberville, who is right now the dumbest member of the Senate.

That can all change in December if herschel Walker gets elected. But Tommy u Fill supports McConnell but wants to wait until everybody. We have everybody here, we don't know whether herschel Walker is going to be here or not. I mean, I'm telling you, like, amazing, amazing, amazing that they're all kind of saying the same thing, which is, you would be disrespectful to herschel Walker. And it's like herschel has

no idea what a Senate leadership election. He literally there's no chance that herschel Walker is like, I feel disrespected by you guys having this without me. He's probably like, you know what happens if I win? But I put my feet up on this desk, like there's just not each chance that he has any idea what's going on. Well, and also I think it's been very clear that herschel Walker is going to vote however they tell him to vote,

which is why they want him in the first place. So, you know, I mean, it's just amazing the idea that we're gonna wait for herschel Walker decide the leadership um. But I would also like to just point out for a minute that you have Rick Scott, who is I mean, again, we don't know the internal machinations of what happened. I'm sure there will be more reporting, but he's certainly from the outside, he looks like he did a terrible job, right.

And then we have Mitch McConnell, who right, you know, he didn't like the he doesn't like Trump World, but he's been very effective. And now we're going to have the two of them face off. Yeah, and it's big, big let them fight energy. I don't really quite understand, you know, where Rick Scott gets off thinking that he deserves anything in this life. They lost a seat in

an election with an unpopular Democratic president. I mean, that's enough for you to be shunned from the party for a lifetime, let alone you thinking you deserve higher leadership capabilities, especially after it came out that you were sitting on a yacht, you know, as a hundred something million dollars was being squandered. I just like, whatever you think about the Republican Party or the Democratic Party, he should have zero support, less than zero sports Brettiston ellis less than

zero time. I fully just don't really understand. Like it's one thing for a lot of mediocre white guys like myself to fail up privately, it's to fail up publicly, like to be in the public eye, and fail up is such an accomplishment. So I don't know. Maybe I'm giving him less credit than he deserves. I guess the lesson here is that Medicare fraud is easier than Republican politics. Yeah, I think so. I think so. I mean, it's a good gig if you can get it right exactly. But yeah,

House Republicans met on Tuesday. It seems like Republicans voted one eighty eight to thirty one to nominate McCarthy for speaker over Andy Biggs. So that sounds like McCarthy's got it. McCarthy will now be the slave of Marjorie Taylor Gren And I say this as as nonpartisanly as possible for someone as dumb as Kevin McCarthy. Yeah, because they're Republicans. Seemed great. I definitely want in on that's right, go on. Yeah.

I just think that Kevin McCarthy is not a very smart guy, and he's not a very talented politician, and I don't really quite understand how he's made it this far handsome, and I do not envy him, Like his next two years are going to be freaking hell on Earth as he tries to placate you know, he was not easy for Nancy Pelosi to have a very big tent around a lot of issues and corral every single

Democrat to do what she wanted, which she did. McCarthy only really has two wings at the end of the day, and that's like establishment rich tax cut Republicans and mega rich tax cut Republicans, and like, I still don't know that he's gonna be able to corral all those people. I was looking forward to some sort of big challenge that went completely chaotic and ended up with Tulsie Gabbert

as speaker. Well, they would like Trump as speaker, right, Yeah, I mean there's always I think my favorite process story in all of politics is when you get that story about which non sitting member of the House should be the speaker because nobody could agree. And I saw Tulcie's name floated and I laughed for two hours. Low steaks, that would be the funniest political story of our lifestymes

every day. Yes, I agree, but the real speaker will be Marjorie Taylor Gran I know, yeah, I mean, look that the best thing that Marge ever did was figure out how to raise a lot of money, and you know, I had a lot of airtime, and you know, she would be relegated to the dustbin of history if you know, if she weren't such an effective fundraiser and shameless communicator. So yeah, I mean, he's got whatever the right word is for the Freedom Caucus, because it's certainly not freedom.

You know, he's gonna have a real, real tough time raining these people in Gates came out for Jordan yesterday, who then immediately turned around. It was like no, no, no, I'm good. I'm with McCarthy. So so some wires got cross there. If Jordan's mounted a serious challenge, I do think this would have gotten interested. Jordan's obviously is a very smart guy and he wants to be I shouldn't say Obviously, Jordan is a smarter guy than he looks

and he sounds. And I do think that him knowing that he's going to be the chair of the Judiciary Committee is a way easier and better job than speaker. So you know, I give him a lot of kudos for that. But you know, I don't know, like I think Kevin McCarthy, who has been over his head for years is going to absolutely sink in the next six to twelve months. Oh yeah, even a talented politician wouldn't

be able to do this, So yeah, totally. I mean, you know, I will say, for all Pelosi's faults, and I do think that she has faults, I do not think that Nancy Pelosi is nearly as infallible as a lot of the folks who made the memes of her clapping are. But you know, at the same time, like she was able to corral that Democratic Caucus in a way that I I have not seen in a really long time. I mean, I think we're gonna look back at the one Pelosi era as like, holy fucking shit,

how did she do that? Yeah, she's been very effective. Let's talk about Rona McDaniel Romney, when you said ron I was like, are you gonna go Johnson to Santas or no? McDaniel on this one. I can't believe ron Ann got re elected. Rhonda, Rhona McDaniel, mcdonna, Romney. She

really not great, not great. Anytime you can sit there and lose the Senate and a couple you know, lose the mid term election in two eighteen, lose the presidential election in lose the mid term in two and then have the goal to reach out to people and say please congratulate me online, which is something that she did according to reporting. Just unbelievable, just unbelievable. Yeah, it's such a weird time for these Republicans, and they really are.

They seem to be kind of more like you know, they're the people who are trying to kind of like back way slowly from Trump without him noticing, right. And then there are the people you know you're seeing, like since I saw Cynthia Loomis from Wyoming, right, a state with seven people. Um, she I'm sorry. If you're a Wyoming person, I'm sorry you have hundreds of thousands of people in your stadum. Sorry, but but she was sort

of backing away slowly. You're seeing some of that, but then you're seeing at least Stephonic, a very ambitious woman, has already indorsed Donald Trump even though he hasn't announced. Yeah, that was crazy to me. I mean, especially because when at least Stephonic got elected, she did present herself as like a rational person who wasn't going to, you know, go full right wing. She wanted to work in a bipartisan way. That first impeachment she just saw the light

and went for it. And the fact that she endorsed before it was even a reality, I mean, it's not right now. I know, just is Craven. I mean, it's just craven. But you know, with Ronald McDaniel. Oh and by the way, I should say, it's Cynthia Lummis. And the only reason why I know that, the only love that is because she had like they get to know me thing in the Senate where she did a rhymes with hummus and brought out hummus, which was an incredible

side story. And that's Cynthia because I went and did like lumus pronunciation once and it's like her holding a bowl of humus, and I was like, Okay, this woman is amazing or crazy amazing. I know she's very into crypto too. Man, good week for her, then, that's right, Yeah,

just unbelievable stuff. I mean, look, the one thing I'll say is if if you want to put a bow on this conversation, you know, the one thing I will say is that everything we just laughed at, you know, everything that we think is crazy, everything that we think is off the charts absurd, will come back to bite us in the s you know there were in six months.

The tide will turn, something will happen all of a sudden, Republicans will be in favor of it again, and we're gonna look like absolute clowns for for laughing at this. Let's hope. I don't hope, but I agree. It's the law of punditry is said, sooner or later this will be used to uh ends. Gordon Sandland is the former U. S Ambassador to the EU and author of the Envoy Welcome Too Fast Politics. Ambassador Gordon Snlon, are you still

called ambassador or honorable? Well, I'll tell you a better story. When I first got the title ambassador, after I took the youth of office, the first person who addressed me was my then wife who said, Mr Ambassador, would you please take out the fucking garbage? It doesn't help. Right, You're apparently accorded the title for life, but it's up to you if you want to use it. You know, it's funny because it's like, you were so instrumental in

that first Trump impeachment. You were a witness, you were really interesting part of that, and then now we've come back to that whole story has really dominated the new cycle. So let's first talk about that first impeachment. How do you even get there? Well, I think this conversation is about the new book I just released. Yes, let's talk about that. So in the Envoy you talk about this, but talk to us our listeners who may have not

read the book yet, about how exactly you got there. Well, I got there because apparently someone listened in on the conversation between President Trump and President Zelenski and decided to take it upon him or herself to create a whistleblower sort of framework in that they thought that the conversation was highly inappropriate, which then ultimately resulted in the impeachment inquiry and the impeachment without a conviction of President Trump.

My own feelings based on having been deeply involved in the process, including the benefit of hindsight, that nothing that happened at that time warranted an impeachment. That was a ballot box issue. I think the issue was well aired. The transcript of the call was made public, and the voters could decide in whether they wanted to re elect President Trump or not based on that and a lot of other things that he did or didn't do. You felt like that conversation between Trump the this is the

famous conversation was not impeachable. Explain it was not impeachable. It was not perhaps appropriate. He was conflating two different things in that call. What to things? Well, he was obviously at the you know, once the call became public, he was conflating concern about his opponent and his opponent's son with a discussion with a foreign leader about a meeting in the Oval office. And I didn't think it was appropriate the way that call was handled. Was it

an impeachable offense? Was it a high crime and misdemeanor? In my view, this is my personal view, I don't think so. I'm curious, So you think it's okay for presidents to do stuff like that. I didn't say that Molly, I said, I wouldn't have handled it that way. I also understand the gravity of taking a duly elected politician, Democrat, Republican, whatever, and impeaching them every time they do something that we think as an appropriate or we don't like. I don't

feel that way about January six. I do believe that January six was impeachable. I did not think the Ukraine situation was. You had already been this ambassador to your pen union, you had been on many calls like this. But had you ever heard a president sort of say like, if you do this, I'll do that. I just heard Joe Biden say it to the Saudis, please don't reduce oil production until after the mid terms. Well, alright, Molly,

it's completely equivalent. I heard President Obama speak with President Medvedev and say I will have more flexibility after the election. I've heard many, many, many presidents conflate their own political aspirations with US foreign policy. I did not think that President Biden or President Obama should be impeached on either of those conversations. I think they were inappropriate. However, so you think the trying to keep gas prices down is the same as trying to get on your opponent. I

do really. Yeah, what you're doing is you're basically taking an asset of the United States, which is the leverage that you have with a foreign country, and saying this will help me in my election or in the election of my colleagues. If you artificially do something differently than you normally would do for my benefit, and then after the election transpires, then do what you have to do. Absolutely,

it's equivalent. I can't believe you don't see it that way. Well, I mean, I also believe that Opek is price fixing schemes, so I don't think that lowering gas prices. I don't disagree with you that he wasn't lowering gas prices, right, Well, I'm just saying to make a case for lowering gas prices when Americans were suffering at the pump. It may

eventually benefit Biden, though it may not. Write. We saw the voters didn't really care about gas prices in this election, and they certainly could have, and most predictions where they would have. Let's get back to the real point here, which is when does one use impeachment in the House and then a conviction in the Senate to deal with polite call disagreements or even disagreements of propriety versus what I think the Framers wanted impeachment used for which was

a high crime and misdemeanor. You can shoehorn almost anything into that if you wish. I really like settling these things at the ballot box. I don't think when January six occurred and we didn't properly turn the keys over to Biden and the election was questioned when it was clear that the election. Even though yes, I think there was some election fraud, I think Biden was the dually

elected president. I don't think whatever election fraud occurred rose to a level that changed the outcome of the election. And I think the insurrection and violence at the Capitol, the treatment of the vice president were despicable, and I do think that was an impeachable offense. I just want to get back because you have a really interesting story in a lot of ways. You have Jewish parents, you grew up in Washington State, very ambitious. Remind me of

a lot of people I know in my life. Donor to Jeb Bush, I know a lot of people like that, to giving money, getting in a bassadorship. I have a lot of friends who've had that experience. Somehow during this process you went MAGA or you went along with MAGA, And so I'm curious, like, how does that happen? No, no, no, no, no, no, no no no. First of all, my first political donation was to Senator Henry Jackson, a Democrat. I served under Governor Ted Kolanowski for two terms as the chairman of

his Video and Film office, a Democrat. No, I'm making a case that you are that you come from a very middle of the road Republican party. I come from a centrist place. My candidates were George Bush forty three, John McCain, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, and then finally the one that got elected at a time where I was able to serve because I was not able to serve as an ambassador when George Bush was president it was too soon in my career. It happened to be Donald Trump.

Donald Trump was the Republican elected president. And if you're gonna get an ambassadorship, you don't say no, you take, you know, because you never you never know when it's going to come along again. Was I a member of the MAGA movement. I was never a member of the mega movement. I don't even own a mega hat. Well, that's probably good. An ambassadorship is amazing. I mean, it's just an incredible opportunity. But I'm curious to know where you like. But I have to do it with this

president where you like? I can't, you know, I mean Jeb Bush was not a Trump fan. Well, let me tell you something. The more I got into the job, and the more I understood where we were visa v the EU and I understood the specifics of what I had to do, I supported a great deal of President Trump's policies. I continue to support President Trump's policies like what, Oh my god, the list is endless. Just to be clear, what I don't support, and I've said this publicly, is

I don't support President Trump being the nominee. I think those policies can be ably carried forward by one of the six or seven or eight candidates that are out there on the Republican side, who I think are all qualified to be president and could hit the ground running, many of whom would use those policies. But what about like, I mean, like, for example, you're the ambassador to the European Union for a president who hate NATO. He doesn't hate NATO. I mean, I can find a bunch of

things he said about NATO. He does not like NATO. I mean, didn't you find that kind of crazy? Do you want to tell me what he likes or do you want me to tell you my experience. I want you to tell me your experience. My experience was that he correctly observed that we were picking up the lion's share of the bill, allowing the other NATO members to skate. And he was the first president, all the presidents brought this up quietly and privately. He was the first president

to say, this is bullshit. We're here, we're your friends, were your allies, Do your part, write your checks, join us in defending yourself. And frankly, even the Secretary General of NATO told me in a quiet moment, best deuced collector we've ever had, because he publicly prodded, particularly the Germans, who were terrible on this, to step up and do their part. But then what about like Trump discusses pulling us from NATO, Like, I mean, you think he was

just joking, I mean, what do you think that was? No? I think he was I think he was doing what any negotiator does in any negotiation, and that is something again that we're not used to seeing in a politician. It's very counterintuitive and it's very contrariant. He was saying, Look, I have to find points of leverage in order to get people to do things that are in the United States interest. And everyone does that. And the way I do that is by threatening to pull up my marbles

and go home. Was he ever really going to do that? No, I don't think he was, but I'll tell you it had the intended effect on those sort of recalcitrant members of NATO who are getting by with murder frankly for the last twenty years in terms of their payment history. So your feeling is that Trump was doing three dimensional chess. Really,

that's a bold, bold statement. I'm curious, then, like Trump's relationship with and you've talked about this and you've written about this, Rudy Giuliani, does that fall into the three dimensional chess mill? You? No, thanks for the mill? You I like that. I'm fancy You're fancy. No. No, Rudy Giuliani was brought into this Ukraine thing over the strenuous objections not only of me but of Ambassador Kurt Volker

of Secretary Perry. We thought that Rudy Giuliani had no business being involved in this at all, but Trump insistent he's the president, and our choices were very simple. We had gone to the inauguration of Zelensky, We spent a lot of time with Zelensky, and we thought Zelenski was really someone that the United States could do business with. And we were very disappointed that Trump sort of dismissed it off hand and said, I don't want to deal

with this. Talk to Rudy. And we all looked at each other and said, what did Rudy have to do with this? He's your lawyer, He's not a member of the Trump administration. Unfortunately, Rudy was involved and he shouldn't have been. Did you try to ever talk to Rudy and what was it like? Well, I don't know Rudy. There was this There was these stories going around that Rude body and I were off cooking up deals or

this or that. I never even met Rudy until August of that year, long after we had met with President Trump, and I only met him by text. How are his text I mean, he's like famous for calling journalists, and you know, you've been very frank about a lot of things. What was your hot take on Rudy. I don't think Rudy was effective in what we were trying to do, which was simply to get an Oval Office meeting for

Zelenski with Trump without any preconditions. But Rudy went to Ukraine, right, Rudy was doing all kinds of things that we were not aware of. Rudy was intersecting his work for Trump as Trump's lawyer, his own private business, and god knows what else. That was the problem with having anyone like

a Rudy involved in a serious diplomatic initiative. You're very generous, as I think, well you should be with a lot of these career public servants in the Foreign service, and one of the things we saw after the impeachment was at a bunch of them really got the wrong end of Trump is um? I mean, how do you swear that like a Marie Ivanovitch or I mean, you know, some of them went on to be more political, others

did not. What was your take on that? Well, again, all I can speak to is my own personal experience with any of these people. I'm not going to comment on news reports are on third party views. No, but I mean you liked Maria Ivanovitch. You thought she was very talented, and then her career ended. No, I said, both in my testimony and in my book, I dealt with her on a limited basis. I went to Odessa in February of nineteen. She was the sitting ambassador at the time, and she had a role to play. She

was just great. She was hospitable. She gave us some good insight as to poor Ashenko, who was the sitting president at the time. I spent some time with Porschenko. She called me a couple of times after I after that trip, uh, and my dealings with her were fine. They were very professional. She wasn't a friend. I didn't like her. I didn't dislike her. I mean, she was fine, right, But how do you square that with that she sort

of had her career smushed by Trump? Is um? I can tell you that in the transcript if you read the transcript of the call that Trump made was Zelensky. Zelensky wasn't very happy with her and told Trump that, yeah, but tit doesn't make the rules. Well, Molly, Molly, Molly, Molly, come on, you're smarter than that. You have the leader of a country telling the President of the United States, I don't think your ambassador that you've put here is

very effective. That's gonna resonate with the President of the United States, and he has the prerogative, just as Joe Biden does right now, to say I'm gonna make a change and put someone there that that's going to be more effective in representing my interests. Again, I'm not suggesting that Maria Ivanovitch did anything wrong, but Trump certainly has the right to do that. So do you think Trump fired her because of that? Because that's the inference you're making. No,

I don't know why Trump fired her. But it's interesting that when you become an ambassador, just under just remember this, When you become an ambassador, you have to pass what's called a Grammont. Do you know what that is? No, tell us. When you're nominated your host your country. In this case, the United States sends a letter to the host country saying we are thinking of nominating Molly john Fast to be the ambassador of x France. That's a really good one. Yeah, yeah, I know, because you want

to sit in equiscent, I got it. I mean, no, it's just a very good ambassadorship. And you know it's or Italy. I'll take Italy. It's a great ambassadorship. So the letter goes to the President of France, the head of state, not the head of government, the head of state, and they take anywhere from one to four weeks to respond, and they can say we decline this person, and they don't have to give a reason. They generally don't. They generally don't. They generally accept whoever is put forth, or

we can accept them. And then once they've been accepted, then that person goes through all the vetting that the US government does, the Senate confirmation, the security clearance, all that stuff. If they don't even get to square one with their host country, their name is withdrawn. So clearly, had Marie Ivanovich is named been put forth to Zelenski, she was already the ambassador, so Zelensky really, you know,

didn't have to deal with this issue. But had she been a new ambassador and had her name been put forth, based on what Zelensky said on that call, he may very well have rejected her before Trump had a chance to fire her. And again I'm speculating, who knows you are speculating. This was very interesting. Tell me one last thing. Do you think, now that we're ensconced in this situation in Ukraine, how do you think this is going to play out? Well, I'll tell you. Boris Johnson just wrote

a terrific op ed in the Wall Street Journal. His op ed argues, and this is where I'm fully supportive of the Biden agenda in this case, which is to put the pedal down and end this war. We need to give the Ukrainians full support, our allies need to step up, and the war needs to end. There is no negotiated end, as Boris Johnson argues, and I agree

with him completely. There is only a negotiated end when there's a military end, and the only military end is the eradication of the Russians that don't belong there from Ukraine. So I agree with what President Biden is doing right now. I wish he would do more, and I wish he would do it more intensely, because that's what's protracting this conflict. But he is on the right track, Thank you so much.

Nick Turner is president and Director of the Vera Institute as well as head of VERRA Action Welcome to Fast Politics. Nick Turner, Thank you. I could not be more excited to be here. So first, Nick, I need you to tell us what VERA is and what it does. So the VERA Institute of Justice is a national organization works to end over criminalization, so reduce the rests of people

in this country and then to reduce mass incarceration. And we work with impacted communities all around the country and leaders of government who are committed to making the same kinds of changes that we're seeking to make. This is like the absolutely the worst thing I've ever heard. There used to be a ban on PELL grants for incarcerated students. There did explain to us what PELL grants are and how this works. So PELL grants are are federal financial aid for UM for students in in need, so for

low income students. And back in Congress past bill that's referred to us, I'm bill that eliminated the use of PELL grants for incarcerated students. And what that did is that essentially ended all of the revenue streams that were necessary for colleges to run programs in prison. So like, if you do that before and after, like right up until that moment, they're about seven hundred programs in college programs in prison, and then there were only eight after

that action took place. So back in December, Vera with a broad coalition, actually worked to put those PELL grants back in place and got Congress to allow them. And so we're right now on the process of getting colleges and prisons ready. It's actually in forty eight different states around the country. There two hundred three colleges that are already serving students, and then that number is going to really grow once the PELL grants turn on in full

in July three. So that's a great example of the kind of work that we do. So so important because we have a large number of incarcerated people and they're just you know, this is an opportunity for them to get back into the world. It's an incredible thing. I mean, it's a it's like the kind of smart, common sense bipartisan justice reform that you know that we're seeing all around the country where it works well for people who

have paid their dues to society. They're ready to come back to their families, to earn an income, to get a job. And what we've seen is that the you know, the the mere investment of PELL grants to give these to give incarcerated students a chance, increases their opportunities, you know,

to get a job, to have a higher income. It reduces sas recidivism exactly like, so they you know, and and helps them to you know, be the kind of role models that they want to be for their for their kids, and to reduce the likelihood of their kids going into prison. So it's like a win win, win, win win, and just the kind of thing that we

need to see in the justice system. So one of the things that Fox News spent a lot of time talking about this election cycle was crime and how crime crime, crime, crime, crime. There's even a video who people screaming crime. I don't know, I believe it right again, I don't know why what explained us how Democrats? Because it does seem to me like everything they're thinking about is just explain to me what is happening here? Yeah, you know, I mean what

you observed is is right. And there are these you know here in New York where you and I are, I mean the Republican candidate, you know, Zelden. I remember seeing ads on TV of just these montages of security camera videos showing violent acts taking place. He obviously ran on you know, tough on crime platform and said that hocol was really soft on crime. But the but the point that you made about Fox News and sort of

the media infrastructure of the right is totally true. And what we saw in Republican campaigns, I think Republicans spent more money on crime ads, like it was over a hundred fifty million dollars then they spent on you know, the Democrats are messing up the economy ads, which I think they spent around a hundred dollars and a hundred million. And the reason that that happens is that people were

worried about safety and security. Crime has risen in the past two years, and it's a way to sort of like tap into what I describe as like the lizard brain of people like you. People are fearful, so like tap right into that. That's been an old political ploy for years and years and years. And you you probably remember this, but goes back to Willie Horton. And it's not assume I'm many older than I am, but yes, I do remember, yes, and never ever yes, yes, But

I think that's a good point. Let's like deep down dive on this, like Republicans do feel like and we see in the mainstream media a lot like Republicans have the lock on crime people want, But what what is the Republican plan on crime? That's a great question. And and you would think with the kind of spending and the push that the Republicans made all of the what I will say is sort of inaccurate and inflammatory direct in the you know, in the campaigns that they would

in fact have a lock. But one of the things that we saw in the camp post election was actually it wasn't a referendum in favor of the Republicans. Voters pretty much said across the country as we want something different. Yes we want safety, and safety is important for all of us, and it doesn't really matter what the color

of our skin is or like where we live. We're concerned about that, but we don't believe in the zero sum game that you're peddling, because basically what the Republicans peddled in the election was Democrats aren't keeping you safe. You know, we need to be tough on crime, we need to lock people up. The problem is all of these reforms that Democrats have put into place, whether it's bail reform or you know, progressive prosecutors around the country

and we're gonna and we're gonna toughen things up. But but people generally didn't didn't buy into that. You know, I could give you a few examples, but I think the really important thing to note is that on some level, what the campaign argument was was you want safety, you can't have justice. And what we know the American people want is we want safety, but we believe we can have justice too, and we demand it. So there can if I can, just you know, allow me to sort

of nerd out here a little bit. Yeah, please, that's what we do here. Verra Action did an exit poll and it showed that sixty percent of voters of actual voters said that crime was one of their top issues. But another really important poll that came out also showed that sevent of likely voters thought it was really important to reduce jail and and and prison populations and supported justice reform, and that included a high percentage of Republicans

and independence. So what people are calling for, what voters are calling for, is not this lock them all up. We feel unsafe, but we feel unsafe, But what we

want our on a solutions. We don't want to go back to the old police jail's prisons are the thing that keeps us safe because we don't believe in it, right well, And it is also I mean, it's interesting to see this because we here, we are in this country where a lot of Americans, and I mean, even like the don or class, which tends to be very slow in certain ways, has decided that like mass incarceration doesn't serve anyone, right right, I mean, and you know

you're seeing like the Koch brothers are you know, so I mean, and it's also i mean, besides that, it's also very expensive. It's like not a great thing to do to people, and it doesn't help them, it doesn't rehabilitate them, and it's also very expensive. So I'm curious to know, like, what do you think the Democratic Party should be doing in order to message crime better? That

is such an important question. I'm really one of the reasons why the why we saw Republicans investing so heavily and using this, you know, the inflammatory rhetoric and putting all of this money into making Democrats look soft, is that when you look at voters as a general matter, voters tend to trust historically Republicans more than they have trusted Democrats. So the Republicans have preyed upon that sort

of soft label. What we need from Democrats, and this is really important, We need it from democrats, We need it from anyone who believes in justice and fairness and wants to advance reform is a really solution based response to people's concerns about crime and safety. And by that, you know, what I mean is that it's a mistake to be silent about it. You know, what we saw some candidates do. Republicans would attack them and then they would quickly deflect and talk about something else. Let's talk

about January six. And so what that told voters is like, hey, like, this is a kitchen table thing. I'm nervous about this, and I don't hear you addressing it. So the first thing that I think is really important for Democrats to do is to address people safety and concern issues and say, yes, I hear you. Everyone has a right to be safe and secure, and we have the solutions. What we don't have, what we're not interested in doing is is applying scare

tactics and uh, you know, and hyperbole. But hear what the solutions are, you know, and there are strategies that really the work to deliver safety. That to invest in you know, UH, mental health specialists to handle nine one one calls when someone is having a breakdown, UM, you know, rather than sending the cops. To invest in uh something

called restorative justice, which victims appreciate, UM. And to invest in re entry programs so that when people are coming out of prison they are given the kinds of supports that they need to be successful and to and to not as to you know, as you said earlier, like to recitivate. Democrats have to have to address that safety issue.

I think we have been a little hesitant to do. So. It's funny because I'm thinking a lot about Val Demming's who I've had on this podcast in a number of times, and who was a police chief and a member of Congress and married to a mayor of Tampa, Florida, and he was a policeman too. She is as pro police

as you can get. And her message was like, there are some places that you shouldn't send the police, right like that you need to, you know, when with the mental health stuff, and we've seen think of all the videos we've seen of the police killing mentally ill people, right, like, those are not the times to call the police. And then there are times to call you know, like there there's a place for social workers in crime, yeah, or quote unquote crime. That's exactly right. Look, I mean there's

this fact. I mean, if you look at arrest that happened in the country, that around ten million arrests every year, and if you break them down, five percent of them or for violent crimes, yes, the police are the appropriate responders for that. But then if you like eight of those arrests are for conduct that relates to poverty or

mental illness, or homelessness or substance use. And so just the point that you're making, and that you know, Demmings made, that we have available to us other responders mental health specialists, homeless you know, and housing specialists for homeless people who might be in the you know, in the subway here in New York or elsewhere, or substance use specialists, and to use not only not just rely as we have in this country on sort of traditional law enforcement, but

to rely on the public health system to provide some of the responses that ultimately keep the community safe. I think there's one, you know, one of the things that I think is really hard for Democrats. And I understand this, and I understand it also as a as a reformer, and why we've sometimes it's been hard for us when we see UH people or when people talk about crime

and safety. We don't want to engage the conversation so much because public safety has always been used as the argument like public safety for whom it's always been the argument for more police, more jails, and more prisons. But the important thing for us in the reform community and for anyone who supports justice to recognize is that our

communities demand safety just as much as so. I'm black and Filipino, and I remember conversations with my uncle uncle Clyde, you know here in Brooklyn, who I would talk a lot about the justice reform to this organization that my organization VERA was doing, and he was and he would always ask about, well, is that going to keep me safe? Am I gonna be safe walking on the sidewalker or

in the subways? And I didn't do a good job of answering that initially, and I and I recognize that that's really that that's a fundamentally important thing for us to to answer. But what I also know about my uncle Clyde is that he didn't believe in the same old solutions of stop and frisk or you know, or or more jail in prison. He just he wanted he wanted a solution. And black communities in this country, right do want a solution for crime, do want a solution.

But there's been hesitance to acknowledge that. Yeah, And I think that that is, you know, we have no mental health system for these people, so it's like jail is where they go. And I think that that it's such an interesting time in American life because like, these are people who don't I mean, like the person who is sitting on my you know, block is not a criminal, but they do need you know, they're they're probably in

need because it's very cold out, you know. And that's the thing we don't have, you know, a great way to look at this problem that's both compassionate and we

we haven't traditionally. But you know, I have to say that I I think we despite everything that we saw in the election and all the at the video that you talked about, I think that that we are making progress and and so you know, I so you know, I see all around the country their municipalities that are that are starting to respond in the exact way that

you just mentioned. In Denver, in Albuquerque, here in New York, in West Hollywood, and lots of different places are hiring mental health specialists, safety ambassadors, so not necessarily relying on cops who are getting out of their car with side arms to address a matter that is really not a criminal matter. It's a different kind of need. So we're

seeing that in many, many places around the country. And we're seeing, like we just talked about when we were discussing pal you know, forty eight states around the country that are saying, look, we've got to do something smart here. People have paid their debt and we want to help prepare them to succeed. A college education is hugely important force getting gaining employment now, and so so the rhetoric

is something, but the American people want something different. And all around the country we're seeing a pretty profound movement to get the kind of stuff done that we've been talking about. And I'm and I'm really hopeful about that. That's fantastic. Thank you so much for joining us. This was so interesting and I'm really glad that we go to chat about this. Thank you, Molly. I'm really grateful to be able to chat with you about it too. George Conway, what h I'm sorry, I just woke up.

Something put me, something put me to sleep. George is here for our special post Trump announcement recat. I need some coffee. Whoa that was? That was? That was me? He made Jed Bush look like a nuclear power plant. That was so low energy. I mean, do you think MAGA now stands for make America groggy again? He was teleprompter Trump and it was that sleepy not you know, he's bored when he can't say something to I'm reading this and can't say mean things about Ron the sanctimonious.

And also the crowd wasn't the typical queue and on Crazy's it was so low energy as well. The guy who wears the wall suit was there. You know that's the only wall he ever really Bill, Yeah, that guy when he is an incredible mustache. I was there, right, Pillow guy was there. Ivanka was not. Maybe this was just a pillow advertisement. That's it. That makes now, it makes sense. The top lines that I saw and CNN did twenty five minutes, and they got so bored with

it they you know, they went back. They cut it off. Even Fox I heard cut it off for five minutes. Yeah, no, you gotta make it's short and sweet and punchy. And CNN, I mean, CNN did have Daniel Dale onto fact check. Daniel Dale. Man, he's he's he's back in business, exactly, back in but we saw him on the strategic Daniel Dale was making excuses for Trumps is there are not as many lies as his normal speech because he's reading off teleprompter. But there's still a lot of lies, and

let me go through them. But that thing that's interesting about Trump, even at his best behaved, he's still like stuck on all of these ninety nineties things. So he complained about how the American people don't spend enough time worrying about nukes, which I think we do, and then he said that Biden emptied the strategical petroleum research is essentially he actually did as well, It's actually true that the strategic petroleums went down apparently during Trump's time in office.

And then, I mean, it feels like silly to fact check him because because he's it's like what you expect me to actually say say accurate things. We don't. Although he said the missile struck fifty miles inside Poland, it's like, no, four miles, everybody said four miles. You know, somebody should just send him the classified information so that you will have the accurate information. Well, I mean, I think either way you send him the classified information, you send him

the unclassified information. Either way he's going to have it wrong. I don't know. I had like a little bit of an existential crisis while I was watching it, because I was like, we've been fucking doing this since two thousand and fifteen, Like those hours of my life I will never get back. I'm going through Twitter now seeing quotes from parts of the speech that I didn't see because CNN cut away and I fell asleep. Um, Maggie Haberman saying that he said I'm a victim. I'm such a

victim that one. Yeah, I didn't see that, but yeah, I mean I think that it does feel like, I mean, it's just the same thing he always does. Now. The question is, I think the million dollar question for all of us is like, will the Republicans come to their senses this time? Or will they just you know, they bought the ticket. Are they going to take the ride? Yeah, yes, ma'am. What do you think I think that he's going to win the nomination because I don't think there's anybody gonna

be taking it away from him. I don't think the Santis is going to run. I don't think Pence can do it. You know, I just think he's going to walk to the nomination even if he gets indicted. The party is going to vote for him no matter what. And that's more than enough to win, particularly in a in a multi party, multi candidate race, and so and then he just loses again and then finally that does it. But it's not going He's not going to lose quietly. He is going to, you know, if he gets indicted,

he is going to incite problems. And he's even said he's going to do that. I mean, he said there will be big problems if I'm ever invited. He's basically said that in substance. I mean, he's basically we're gonna you know, he's going to basically it's going to be a call to arms again. And he has no compunction about causing violence as we've seen, so that's not really, I'm not really hopeful of you know, I don't think he's gonna win, but I think we're we're in for

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