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 a court following has revealed the Justice Department has released less than one percent of the Epstein files. We have such a great show for you today. George Conway stops by to talk about his run for Congress. Then we'll talk to the Eurasia Groups Ian Brema about the destabilization Trump has brought to the world stage. But first the news.
All right, Mai. We have a new congressional landscape because a lot of weird things happen since we last taped. We have Marjorie Taylor Green gone or see won't be filled till at least March. We have Congressman Doug LaMalfa who passed away, and Indiana Rep. Jim Baird and his wife were injured in a car accident that may prevent him from voting.
By the way, in a month, a Democrat will take the Mikey Cheryl seat. So Johnson's majority to eighteen to two thirteen.
Leaves a lot of room for a Thomas Massey to swing around his anti Trump feelings? Are they feelings?
Look Mike Johnson got this job, he got this seat, He got to be Speaker of the House because Donald Trump wanted a yes man. He wanted someone who would do whatever he wanted. And while that is good for Trump, or at least it was, he didn't put in there someone who knew how to do it, like Tom Emmer or even Kevin McCarthy, who is no rocket scientist. Even Kevin McCarthy would have been a much better pick for
this job. But you have Mike Johnson, who is not good at this job, and whenever he has trouble, he sends everyone home. So what's happened? At least I think Republicans in Congress are a little bit different than Democrats. Republicans in Congress are pretty demoralized, and that's why they keep leaving Congress. And part of the way to have a majority is to have a lot of people there. When people start leaving, you start losing people and your
majority shrinks. So Mike Johnson right now has a majority that is two eighteen to two thirteen, and that is when you have people like Thomas Massey, and they're not a governorable majority. And that is why there are two different bills that have passed that are bills that Trump
doesn't want. And you're going to see more of that because you've got discharge petitions and you've got a House that the Republicans control but really in name only, and so who knows what's happening behind the scenes, but we hope that Hikeem is out there trying to flip some members of Congress.
Yeah, this is a perilous time for Mike Johnson's rule.
Yeah. Who could have seen it coming? Everyone?
Yep, you know, these things can flip fast. As we saw last year the Democrats lost a couple different members due to death. So who knows where this plays out.
It's good to not have really really old members of conqueror.
Yep, you'll be shocked to hear that this situation in Venezuela, it's beginning to look a lot like Iraq. Trump says the US government may reimburse soil companies for rebuilding Venezuela's infrastructure.
Yeah, that is not what anyone wants. There's a guest on this episode, Ian who talks about how he thinks this could go and I think, and this is a really good point. Wired has a really good article about this too, which is history shows us that the US is really good at coups, but they tend to be not so good at all the stuff that happens after coups. And I think that's a really really really good point,
Like it's easy to take a leader down. It is much harder, as we saw most recently in Afghanistan, but we've seen in other places to install a leader to follow up with that. And that's where we are right now, is there's not a plan and they're you know, Trump ran on end foreign wars, and so here we find ourselves in a completely you know, a situation where Trump is you know, it's the you break it, you bought it school of diplomacy. It's a pottery barn meet to
the Middle East, and that's where we are. Fun stuff could be a problem.
So some of the more shocking news in a week of shocking news was that Tim Walls decided not to run for another election as governor of Minnesota after some very very i would say, not good politics, very unfair play propaganda disguised as news, particularly this young lad. The right wing is latched onto Nick Shirley, who did a lot of bullshit journalism. He went to places pretended they weren't open, blocked out signs that showed they weren't open.
And what we're seeing as estimates that more people watched this than all three news networks combined.
Brought times like one hundred, right, I.
Wouldn't say times one hundred, but times a lot. It was one of the most seismic. I even just tallied up numbers on YouTube and I got to twenty five million.
So basically, what is happening here is that more than two years ago there was a case of corruption, fraud, thievery of public funds in Minnesota the Biden DOJ, which I have a lot of qualms about and a lot of complaints about, but they did in fact prosecute I don't know ten twelve thirty people. I think a lot of people. People went to jail, et cetera, et cetera. Fast forward Nick Shurly. There was a lot of reporting about it at the time. There was ten pieces in
the New York Times. Fast forward Nick Shirley and his merry band of propagandas I was going to say, moronic billionaires, and that crew found that they decided that none of this had ever been covered and that they were breaking news. The point is there's been punishment, people have gone to jail, there has been investigations, there has been criminal charges, but it does not matter because these people are discovering for
the first time. So basically the problem is this, when you are running for governor for a third term, that third term situation is complicated. We saw this with Bloomberg in New York when he ran for mayor. I mean it was different with Bloomberg because he had to change the rules to run for a third term. But governor's races are weird and the third one changes the context a little bit. And now with Klobashar in there, she really has a better shot. I think she's a real
national candidate. And I think that probably what happened here is that Wall saw these polls and saw that he probably was not going to win, and so here we are. I think it's disappointing. I mean, I have always been a fan of his, but I also think, like, what's so interesting about Minnesota is they have such a good bench of Democratic candidates and like we will have on this podcast soon, Peggy Flan again, she's running for Senate.
I think she's probably the first Lieutenant governor of Minnesota who is a Native woman. That's very cool. So there are a lot of talented people and the Minnesota Democratic Party. I'll be interested to see now because this will mean if it works right, it means that Clomentum becomes governor.
If she wins, she will then put someone in that Senate seat, and you'll have Peggy Flann again running for the other Senate seatret because Tina Smith is not going to run again, So you will have two new senators from Minnesota. Very interesting. I'll be curious to see who Clomentum picks.
Yeah, and I think just think we should say the other really disgusting part of the story is that Nick Shirley and his propagandist friends spread that Governor Walls helped get his dear friend Melissa Wortman killed, and then President Donald Trump's that as well.
Yeah, it's a lot of horrible stuff, but the bright spot is that there's a lot of talent in Minnesota.
So another thing that horrified many people as we walked into this new year is that the Trump administration is making deep cuts in the child vaccine schedule.
Yes, not only are they making deep cuts, they're making really deep cuts. So, I mean, this is just absolute bad shitty and in fact, this is probably one of the dumbest. So now they're cutting rotavirus, COVID nineteen, influenza, meningitis, hepatitis A and B. It is absolutely insane, insane, insane, insane. Children will die, It is absolutely pointless. Kids are going to die, Adults are going to die. It's absolutely fucking unconsionable.
We have exciting news over at our YouTube channel. The second episode from our Project twenty twenty nine series is out now. It's a reimagining where we examine what went wrong with democrats approach to politics and how we can correct it and deliver changes to help people's lives. The first episode dove into the very sexy topic of campaign finance reform, and our second episode deals with an even
sexier topic, antitrust and regulation. We look at how antitrust and regulation can protect American citizens and make America thrive in an era of rampant corruption and predatory crony capitalism. We talk to the smartest names in the field like Lena Kahan, Elvero Bedoya, Elizabeth Wilkins, and Doha Mechi. Republicans were prepared for when they got the levers of power.
We need democrats to be too, So please head over to YouTube and search Molli John Fast Project twenty twenty nine, or go to the Fast Politics YouTube channel and find it there and help us spread the word. George Conway is a candidate in the Democratic primary in New York's twelfth congressional district. George Conway, welcome.
Thank you for having me. I know so I have me when some guest cancels on you, I know that.
Yes, that's why I'm having you today. Was my other guest who was running for New York twelve canceled, so I thought I'd get you. You're you're a fill in, So tell me what you're up to.
Well, I had I went to get some coffee this morning.
That was it.
It was great, and I had at me.
Yes, I want you to talk about why you think why you would be the person to impeach President Trump.
Well, I'm highly motivated, as you know. I mean we are at a crossroads. I mean we really are threatened here. We're threatened by a potential loss of democracy, a loss of a rule of law. When we see it every day, constitutional government and it's got to stop. And we need people who are going to meet in Congress who are not going to hold back we were basically just call
it out as they see it. And we need lawyers in particular because the two things that we need to do with this guy, first of all, is to hold him accountable all his people accountable, which involves investigating and impeaching. And the other thing is we have to do things to make sure. We have to pass laws to make sure it never ever happens again. I mean, there's so many laws that you can think of, just off the top, you know, protecting the Justice Department from political interference. The
twenty fifth Amendment is one of my favorites. You know, there was a bill that Nancy Pelosi introduced in twenty twenty. I think Jamie Raskin had previously introduced it. That you know, under the twenty fifth Amendment, Section four, Congress can designate a body other than the Lex Bittle Alyxplittle Cabinet to figure out whether the president is mentally competent or physically competent. I mean, that's got to be done because we can't have what we have now again all sorts of things.
The War Powers Act obviously we just learned this week. Really we need to figure out a way his strength make it more festive. Yeah, there's just so many, many things. And the thing that all of this is, yeah, it's Trump, Trump, Trump. And some people are going to say, well, what about everything else? And I don't get these democrats. I mean, I love so many Democrats get this. But there are a few who and they mean well, but they say, well, we want to talk about Trump. We want to talk
about Trump too much. We got to talk about the kitchen table issues as if they were separate, and they're not separate. They're completely intertwined. Because we have a president we don't give a shit about anybody other than himself. He's running the government like a mob operation. He's running for his own benefit. He's running the government. We have government of the Boss, by the boss, and for the
Boss and all of his friends. And that's the reason why, you know, he's focused on on shit like the arm invested at the Kennedy Center. Renaming the Kennedy Center is nice jed from Qatar. His uh, I mean, his his ballroom real. He'll throw his unconstitutional legal third in all year old and you know he doesn't care about anything that's happening to real people. He doesn't care about using the government to help people. He doesn't care.
About Yes, okay, so I want you to explain to us why you're the person So like Jamie Raskin is a great example, because he is a lawyer. He has proven to be a really good member of the House, right and one of the reasons wingman right, and you come. I want you to talk about your experience at Walktau and why that is relevant to what you want to do.
If he can elect all the.
Things that you need to know how to do, you can learn how to do as a lawyer litigation. You learned how to cross examine witnesses, and I'm a great cross examiner. I mean, this is gonna be great for hearings. I know how to investigate. I know how to litigate. I know how to push all these buttons. And then of course the drafting and the knowledge of constitutional all that thing, all of that, this is all lawyery. We need good lawyers in Congress right now more than ever.
And you know, I mean, Jamie, Jamie Raskin needs all the help you can get on that committee. And I'm you know, I want to be there and I want to help, and I think I'm the best person suited for that.
Part of Trump is this psychological game, right like, And we saw this really clearly with Zoran. If he's easily played, he is easily So talk us through how that relates to your congressional Well. I think the thing is, he's easily to distract and to engage. I think one of the things I do well with him is to point out his psychological disorders and and make him manifest them.
Right.
And this is the thing about this is this is central to who he is, and central to why he can't govern it, and central to why he is a danger to the world. He's a narcissist. He's a malignant narcissist. I've been talking about that, I write, I wrote an eleven thousand word piece in seven years ago about that in the Atlantic. You know again, he cares only about himself.
He only cares about his ego. All everything he's doing is to gratify his ego, to make him feel strong, to make him, you know, to seek retribution against others. He can be easily distracted into showing how bad he is. And I think we need to draw him out on it. And I think that's what you know, could have happened more in the twenty four campaign. I think we're going it's going to happen here is well.
Don Trump has kidnapped a president of Venezuela and his wife. He has brought them to New York to face drug trafficking charges. Because Donald Trump is very worried about drugs, except sometimes when he's partnering people who what the fuck is going on here? What do you think is going on here?
Well, look, I mean all of the stated reasons, I have nothing to do with any figure. Right, he's talking about the drug running, the indictment in the Southern District of New York for money laundering and drug running. Like he pardoned the Honduran president let him go. So it's not really about that. It's about ego, and it's about oil. It's about conquest, it's about power, it's about all of that. And that's why they're talking now about Greenland. Okay, where's
the dictator in Greenland? This is all just a giant power play. He actually should like Maduro. Maduro is a strong man, Maduro criminal Maduro is just like him.
And Maduro has a great relationship with his buddy Putin does buddy Putin.
They're all you know, they're all the same, and you know it's not it's not about anyway helping the United States in any way, shape or form. I mean, they've been lying about Venezuela for a long time, talking about fentanyl. There's no fentanyl that comes from there. The whole thing is elite lee. The boat strikes against people. They may have been drug running, but they weren't drug running in the United States, and they weren't drug running fentanyl they had.
You know, those weren't even war crimes because they were just straight out crimes. And now you know Mduro is going to be guilty. He's a bad guy like Trump, but that's got nothing to do with why he's here. It's got nothing to do with why he's here. And the danger of the dangerous pressor that's being set by having the United States is going to take somebody out when it's not in their our national winterest being we
have no basis in international law. That's going to come back to bite us because the next time some you know, we one of somebody we like somewhere that happens to them. I mean, who are we going to be this to object?
Well?
And it also I mean there there's a nightmare scenario where Putin is like okay Ukraine, where she she is like okay Taiwan.
We have to be clean as a whistle. We have to stand up for what is right because we you know, the turn the worm can turn on us too. And the thing about it too, iss like what what are we doing? We we are never good at regime change, right, We are never good at it, Like you can't create a new government that doesn't have support within its borders, and we're you know, we're we're not going to be able to do that. In fact, we basically take this guy out and all his cronies are in charge now.
So what's what was what was the point of this?
You know Trump, you know Kelly An, you know almost all these people who work in this White House.
So what do you think the real point was? I think the real point was a show of strength. And I do think there's something about the oil. He's obsessed with that oil. He's talked about that oil.
He said, we should have never could have taken the we should have taken the oil from Iraq.
I think any of it was to distract from Epstein. Like people are saying.
Sure, sure, I mean you know anything he's doing, he you know, he's become more and more manic because of the Epstein thing. Sure, absolutely, that's part of it. He's been panicking about the Epstein thing, so more manick he becomes. It's that's part of I think that's part of the Epstein fall out. But why why what do you mean why.
Why is he panicked about Epstein?
What's in the file?
Some ian?
We still haven't seen what's in the files. We have seen lots of reactions. I mean, he knows, he knows what he knows, he's got something to hide. I mean when he's talking about when you know that Marjorie Taylor Green, did you see that? Wor?
Right?
There are people? Are you gonna hurt my friends? Friends?
Donald Trump doesn't have friends, right, Donald Trump care about friends. He's not trying to help anyone. There's only one person Donald Trump cares about helping, and who's that Donald Trump? So you can infer from that that he is concerned about something in the files, and he's concerned that has something to do with him. What that is no. I think we've I think we've seen enough. I think the birthday card we've seen enough. Right, Well, he why about
the birthday card. It's the signature matches the signature of everything he's ever said. No, the United Kingdom had an ambassador, a very prominent labor politician, Lady or Mandelsson, who had a completely nondescript birthday card in that book, didn't have a picture of a naked woman.
But guy was gay.
In fact, I met at dinner with them, okay, and they out back.
Yeah.
Right, it's like the guy didn't do anything compared to what Trump did, right, you know.
That's it's so let's talk through a little bit about what you know right now. The House of Representatives has it was just a member, a Republican who died in office, sixty seven, sixty five years old. Not that all died in office. So now the makeup is that they basically Republicans have a one seat majority, and you have Thomas Massey, who is already like if.
You're lumbering off the reservation every day, if you were.
In the House and Marjorie Taylor Green resigned today or yesterday, if you are in the House, right now would you be making an effort to try to flip more Republican votes? I mean, did you Why do you think that's not happening.
I would hope that it's happening. We don't know that it's not happening, because this is not the kind of thing that's going to be happening out on Constant Tomorrow Avenue where everybody can see it. I mean, I don't know what the what the what the back rooms are like there, I don't know who talks to whom, But these people are starting to get it. They are starting to see the end of the Trump rope. The wheels, you know, pick the metaphor you like, the wheels are
falling off the bus. And and you see more and more Republicans not running. They're scared, they know, they know the game is up. That being said, we can't take any of this for granted. We have to keep pushing until he's gone, because the worst thing you can do is kind of let up. And that's kind of what happened after the twenty twenty election. Everybody thought he was going to go away. Merrick Garland thought he was going.
To go away.
Yeah, Americ Garland, what a disappointment. Do you will you make a case for why do you are you did? Why there needs to be a like a focus on one of the things that happened in twenty twenty was Democrats decided they needed to protect norms and institutions, and Republicans decided they needed to win, and Republicans won, And here we are, right.
Well, the answer is the way you win is by showing these people are bad and the showing that they're self interested in showing that they're evil, all right, And that's how you win.
That.
You cannot just you cannot extract their their malfeasance and their depravity from the reasons why normal people should be elected, because that's what it's all about. That's that's what's causing all the pay that's what's causing the high prices. That right, high prices is because of tariffs and whatnot and people losing ACA subsidies. Like this is all because these people are depraved and evil and they don't give a fuck
about anybody other than themselves. And so you have to talk about that all at once, and you have to be blunt about what's happening. It can't be afraid to say this guy is psycho. He can't be afraid to say that that he's a malignant, narcissist, associopath and an evil person. He's somebody that, you know, any normal person has all. He has all the characteristics you absolutely would
tell your children not to emulate. Has no you know, can't tell the truth, has no empathy, has you know, all does nothing but set Avengage is completely self involved. He and his and takes for what belongs to others. You cannot you can't separate all that for why it is that things aren't going the way people want to go. It's all of a piece and you can't hold back, and you can't hope that they just go away. You can't hope that that, oh, the wheels are falling up,
the bus, people are getting office. He's showing weakness because if you do that, I mean, you act complacently. You know he's going to be back.
May Garland, I think Mayor Garland. I mean all you need to say is Mary Garland, Mary Garland, this is not this is not what I think you're trying to say is this is not a moment for This is not a moment for for norms and institution protection. This is a moment for for fixing.
Well that's right now illegal. The way you s for norms is you fight, Okay, you fight, and you can't do the things that you normally do, conduct politics as usual because that you know, you're we're fighting for our lives here, we're fighting for our lives. We're fighting for the rule or fighting for constitutional democracy, and these aren't normal times, and you can't. You know, we need people who are going to come in. We don't necessarily want
to be career politicians. Career politicians. It's like, well, we don't want to rock the boat.
We are going to do this.
We want to stick to our We want to stick to our And you didn't go forward and do that and you get elected to the same seat for decades. Right, we're going to do We're basically they're not afraid. They're not afraid to sort of make ways and take risks.
And you know, look look at me, right, I'm sixty two years old. I never did it will tank you. So I never thought seriously about going into politics and running for public office until late in the morning or November tenth of this year, and when the idea was suggested me by somebody and you know, I can't do I wouldn't be able to do make a career of it.
Right, And I think, and I think one of the problems we've seen is that there have been too many people who go into politics because they can't get a better job.
Well, yeah, I mean, I'm retired, I should be skiing, but I don't. I don't disagree with that. I don't, but I also don't need to. I don't want to be disparag There are a lot of there are some great public servants you know, who have spent their lives in politics.
And there are a lot of people you've never fun a.
Lot of people who you know, there's there's a lot of people who you know, they got out of the state, some state legislature or somewhere they have trouble getting a job. That's absolutely true. We need people who've done things elsewhere, who have skills that can be applied to this circumstance, this moment. And that's that's my pitch.
Yes, correct, George Conway, will you come back?
I will always come back.
Ian Bremmer is the president of the Eurasia Group. Welcome too fast politics.
Ian, Hey, Molly, Yeah, I've seen you before.
So there's so much to talk about. I am without words. How bad is kidnapping the president of another country and his wife and bringing them to New York to stand try How bad is it?
Well?
Yeah, how destabilizing.
Is that it's not like invading Ukraine where the president was democratically elected and trying to overthrow the country. And you know, it's not as if Trump has engaged in regime change because he's kept the regime in place and he's not sending troops, so it's not like any and no American men or women actually died during the military operation.
So I mean, there's a lot of like, if we could just freeze the tape here, and if nothing else were to happen, you might be like, oh, okay, splendid little activity, right, feels like Grenada.
But of course it's not that simple.
It's that the United States now has some level of influence on ownership.
Over what the politics are going to look like.
And you know, there's a big question of whether a regime that is the same as the Maduro regime minus Maduro is really going to listen to the United States under you know, sort of dint of we will beat you up for a long time, and what it means if they don't, and how the Americans are going to have to continue to respond. So you've kind of put
that marker in. And there is also the question of how Trump is going to respond, not just about an individual narco terrorist who should be out of power and stole a democratic election and should be in jail, but how he's going to now project his power having had that win, because he now embraces the Donroe doctrine, and there are lots of other places where he can cause a lot of damage and he can destroy a lot of relationships.
Right, So I want you to explain to the people who are those of the podcasts who do not maybe know about the Dunrow doctrine, a newly created doctrine created by Donald Trump as a sort of parody of the Monroe doctrine, but explain what the sort of the net of it is.
Well, I don't think he thinks it's a parody.
I think he believes that it is implies that America should have to should have a foreign policy priority over the political orientation and actions of everybody in its backyard as defined by the president. Historically, the Monroe doctrine was about the western hemisphere, so it was really about Latin America.
Today it is more expansive than that.
Certainly Trump would include Greenland in his discussion of the Donroe doctrine. I would also say pragmatically, I would say that last year Trump was really focused on tariffs and that that was his principal tool to get the outcomes he wanted not going to use tariffs as effectively this year because he's got problems with the economy, and he's got an election coming up, and he was also beaten and bloodied by the Chinese and reacting.
To the tariffs he put on.
He had the back down, but militarily he has much more capacity to act unilaterally without anyone hitting him back. And so that combination of my backyard and the military stick is what the down Roe doctrine is all about. I do think that it is leading a lot of countries around the world to say, we don't think we can rely on the United States going forward.
One of the things that I hear from you in this moment, which seems really clear, is that it's all going to be about the second order effects, the things that happen next. Those are going to be the things. So Trump is talked to Joe Scarborough to I said, you know, very proud of what's happened so far. If you went back to Kuwait in the nineteen nineties, after the first military action by Bush Senior right in nineteen
ninety one, actually was a success. It was everything after that that was a disaster.
I would say that that entire Iraqi operation was successful because Bush showed restraint, because he didn't actually go ahead to overthrow Saddam Hussein and take control of Iraq, even though the Kurds felt completely sold out by the Americans as a consequence.
It's not the only time the Kurds have felt sold out historically. When I think about Trump, restraint is not the first word that comes.
To my second or third, not usually, not usually.
So I mean Trump is likely to double down on the basis of this just worked well for.
Me, and it's going to keep working well for me.
And the funny thing is, because so many people have been asking me the last forty eight hours, Molly, They're like, well, so is it about the oil, Is it about the drugs?
Is it about you know, democracy? You know what Macro.
Rubio does Anyone really think it's about democracy.
Well, I mean for Marco, I mean absolutely, I mean, and for all the Venezuelans in exile, I mean, like they really want, like you know, to be able to run the country.
But then they shouldn't have kept the regime a jar.
Well, I mean even so, like you still wouldn't need an actual transition unless you're prepared to like literally send a proconsole down with all of the military support.
And the Americans don't buy that.
So, like I actually think I think Trump does not care about what kind of government there is as long as it supports the US. But I think that even if you wanted a democracy, which Marco does and Trump doesn't care, I think that you would actually work with the military first. You wouldn't just go in and blow them all up. So the first step was the right step in my view, if you were going to go about a regime change policy, if that was what you wanted to do, People ask me, is it oil?
Is it drugs? At democracy?
And the funny thing is it's about removing Maduro. And we need to remember that, Like Trump was really angry at Maduro. Maduro is dancing and he's making fun of him, and he gave him an ultimatum and he asked escalated, escalated, And you know, inside the White House you had Steven Miller telling Trump, you know, anything would be better than Maduro, any outcome, chaos, military dictators, anything would be better Madu.
We just have to get rid of this guy.
And Trump has now gotten rid of this guy with spectacular success.
So a big part of what Trump wanted to do he has already.
Done it again. The problem is everything else that.
He is very likely to take it too far, yes.
But also even if he doesn't take it too far, there's problems there too. I mean, if you look at right, I mean, you destabilize a region. You can't now put the genie back in.
The bottle, having removed Maduro, with the military still there and weakened a bit and no Americans on the ground. If the demands you make of Venezuela are reasonable, and you've now got the former vice president acting president who is actually more of a pragmatist, and it comes with dealing with the private sector, for example, the possibility that the Venezuelan economy could start to actually turn around is meaningful. I mean Maduro was not jabez Jabez was like democratically elected.
He was charismatic, he was a revolutionary, cared about the people.
Maduro was like a thug and a criminal and.
A drug guy, right, but wasn't part of the economy selling oil to Russia and China.
Did you see Molly that right after the US took him out, that a whole bunch of tankers were allowed through the blockade by the United States, And that clearly was because the US is not trying. Number one, not trying to fight with China, so they're going to let them continue to export with China. Number two wants to show that they're engaging with the Venezuelan government, not trying to beat them up economically as long as they behave nicely.
And number three, the Venezuelans actually don't have any more oil storage, so they need to get that oil like on the markets or it's going to damage the economy more. And if the US is going to try to help them rebuild and reinvest, then they don't want it to get any worse. So there are legitimate reasons for the US to allow that to happen.
What would be the dream scenario here, they let them rebuild, they are able to run themselves they are able to have free and fair elections.
Well, and that you would selectively use some pressure to get the opposition that are claimed to be criminals but aren't that are being held and get them released, and that you work over twelve eighteen months to try to have some level of power sharing agreement where the military is still going to be there and their interests will still be respected, but that a civilian government with opposition members could actually be allowed to run and win.
But that is a process and it will.
Require long term negotiations and engagement with this government.
Is it possible. It's possible.
In recent history, we have yet to be able to succeed doing that.
Right, I mean Panama, Right is the example people point to where you get rid of Noriega after an American marine had been killed.
But it's much smaller.
Oh, it's very small.
There's a number of reasons why it's not comparable.
And the US had troops on the ground, and the United States had great intelligence and all the rest.
And also had the Panama Canal.
Right, But Venezuela is not going to be Iraq, right, Venezuela is not going to have a civil war. You don't have sectarian divides there, you have a recent history of democracy. There are lots of middle class educated Venezuelans that would love to come back and invest if the country actually could be well governed. But there is a level of building material there, and I'm talking like civic and human building material that you did not have in
Iraq or Afghanistan or Libya. And that also matters. So we can't, you know, we can't like treat all of these countries as if they're just identical disasters.
Right. But Trump, instead of focusing on sort of the success there, his admin has now started making overtures towards Greenland.
Yeah, and you know that maybe we need to make a strike on Columbia and we.
Hate Petro and that's a great idea. And you know what about Cuba and all the rest?
And why why?
Well?
Number one, because you can that it turns out that the norms that Americans believed contained their president are norms that can be broken and that no one is going to stand up and stop him. And he has proven that time and time again, and much more effectively in his second term, now that he has loyalists around him and he has some experience than anyone would have expected. So part of it is that, part of it is his desire for wins and to be the historic president.
Because the thing about Greenland that upsets me, and I use that term advisedly. I rarely get upset about things, but I'm upset about this. The United States can achieve any policy goal it wants with Greenland negotiating with one of our most aligned tiny allies, Denmark. If we want to have more access for the American military to expand bases on territory which basically is unpopulated, they are more than happy to provide that. If we want intelligence and
listening bases, absolutely no problem. We wanted to launch station for elon Musk and SpaceX, they will make that happen.
You want to make sure that we have the ability to.
Exploit natural resources, minerals, fish, they will negotiate that. The only thing they will not negotiate is that Greenland is a part of Denmark that is not up for negotiation, and that apparently is the single thing that Trump has decided that he absolutely has to have.
I want to talk about this top risk support that you guys just publish, because ostensibly we're supposed to be talking about that, but so much has happened that you have just well, I mean.
By the way, all of the stuff we're talking about is risk Number three is the Donro doctrine. It's there, and it's also the US political revolution, and it is this is the year where the United States is driving the majority of the geopolitical uncertainty.
Around the world. So that is what we are talking about the top Vers report.
There's no question which is insane. I mean, I don't know. I think you're a little older than I, but like the way I grew up, the idea that America we are now the rogue actor is just insane to me. I mean, I know we've had moments where the country has seemed to make a wrong move, but this seems the sort of untetheredness of our leader seems completely crazy.
In my mind.
I described Trump as not the cause, but as a symptom, as a beneficiary, and as an accelerant, because I don't think this is new and I don't put it all on Trump at all. I think that for a long time, a growing number of Americans felt that the United States was acting as the global policeman, with its troops putting
them in Harm's way at huge expense. The US was acting as the architect for free trade, but not paying attention to the hallowing out of jobs in the United States, not supporting the social contract, and the US was promoting democracy around the world at a time that the average American felt that the US system was not democratic for itself.
And you know, one of the things that I find most interesting is that among Americans in the twenty twenty four election who say that democracy was an important reason that they voted, maybe not the most important reason, but an important reason. More of those Americans voted for Trump and commelaers because they believed that the country was already so unrepresentative and captured that they wanted someone that was willing to break the system.
And Trump is that Trump is someone who was willing to break the system.
But it's a year later, and if you check back in those people, none of them are happy.
Oh that's not fair. Well, the magabase is the megabase is right.
But the low frequency voters, if you look at his numbers with young people, the people who are the recent converts to trump Ism, a lot of those people have taken it back.
Your point is correct, but a strong majority of the people that voted for Trump still support Trump and what they got it's exactly what they wanted.
Yeah, but the magabase. You can't win with the magabase.
Right, No, you can't win with any base in the United States. The country's incredibly, incredibly divided. But the fact that you have thirty thirty five percent of the United States that believes that the system is that broken implies that the system is probably reasonably close to that broken.
I would add, the people who believe the system is broken is a different circle on the been diagram, because those are the people. Some of those people are Indies, some of those people are people of color who voted for Trump a year ago and who've changed it. So, I mean, I would say the magabase is partially disruptors and partially just people who vote for a Republican no matter what.
But I'm just saying that.
I think that there is a structural move for the United States to say we don't support free trade, we want industrial policy period.
I think there's a structural move for the.
United States say we want to stop having these troops all over the world doing all this stuff for allies that are actually weaker and they're not growing and they're not productive and they're not spending period.
And there's a lot a lot.
Of people, there's a lot of support for people saying we will stop all that immigration because you've got to take care of us first before you bring in more immgrants done. Those are structural points, and they're playing out all over the world, right all over the world.
For sure, I would say they were structural points, because I mean Venezuela. Trump has said any number of things, he's going to run it, he's going to send boots on the ground, he's going to do this, He's going to do that. None of those are America first.
Right.
Well, he's been very very careful thus far, and again he can change his mind at any moment.
But the twelve Day War in Iran splendid.
Little war operation that we actually saw and experienced in Venezuela.
Splendid little war. And by the way, it would not surprise me.
I don't know if they've discussed this, but it wouldn't surprise me that if it turns out if he needed boots on the ground, wouldn't surprise me if at all.
If he did.
The Russian Wagner Group type thing, mercenaries private sector.
Not sending Americans to die.
Wouldn't shock me at all, because he's so focused on Americans want to stop doing this.
I do think that's a real thing that he has.
Again, who knows what he does. It's all completely nuts.
But I'm not willing to go there.
Right, we don't know what he's going to do, because that's the Madman theory, right, it's Nixon plus plus plus. I want you to talk about the real teriff right because I think really good reporting in the Times a couple of days ago, the real tariff, right is not the terifrate that the Admin is selling it as. What is a real tiff rate?
And why I think the real terif rate now right now blended is about what fifteen seventeen percent?
It's something like.
That, something like that.
And it's like with the IEPA ruling with the Supreme Court, assuming some constraints, it's probably going to come down a bit and there's going to be more deals.
Don't have the Indian deal yet, that's going to get done.
Twenty twenty five was the year of talking about tariffs and that uncertainty. Two twenty six, Trump cannot continue to use tariffs in that way. He has to get prices down, he knows it. He has to get more deals signed with countries. He knows it. He can't fight with the Chinese. He understands that too. That's the other component of the Donroe doctrine is Economically, the world is globalized, it is interdependent, supply chains are sticky, and it is multipolar. Militarily, the
world is unipolar militarily. The United States actually is by far the most important player and can determine outcomes to a much greater degree. And Trump is going to lean more into now the places where he has more influence.
Yeah, let's see what happens.
Ian.
Thank you for joining us. I hope you'll come back.
Sure moly, love you see Sue.
A moment Sue.
Jesse Cannon by junk Fast.
So the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has dissolved after the federal funding cuts after six d years. This is going to be quite shitty.
So the Corporation for Public Broadcasting again, Like, this is something we talk about a lot, which is what does your government important? Where did your tax dollars go? So we're seeing with Trump, we don't know what's going to happen yet, but they did kidnap the president and his wife, even Azuela. So let's talk about this. That's tax dollars, right, So let's talk about these tax dollars. So these tax dollars are gone, the tax dollars that supported NPR, PBS
and a lot of public radio stations, they're gone. That's over ended by a cabal that involved Elon Musk, but was always the plan comes from Project twenty twenty five. The idea was, why should tax dollars go to subsidizing any kind of news? The thing I think is important and I want to go back to Nick Shalley for a minutes. Nick surely is a product of a world that good country, really, that prioritizes clickbait and big headlines
and no reporting right. Because if Nick sually had a team or even a lawyer, right, or even any kind of accountability, he would have read the many, many, many articles about the story. But he didn't because there's no infrastructure. Because the rewards are for people who say things that are provocative and not for the truths. That's behind it. And so what we're seeing here is a culture that does not really give a fuck about the truth. And that is why we are going to see PBS and NPR.
They have now gotten rid of that organization. It no longer exists. The public is no longer funding broadcasting. It's pretty shocking. Just like with the vaccines, it will cause you know, one of the things, and we talk about this in this Ian interview in Gremar, is that there are all all sorts of second order effects coming from this. You know, you don't have reporting, you don't so you're
not going to know what's happening. So you'll have more government corruption, you'll have more state level corruption, you'll have more of all of this stuff. You know, just like when you cut vaccines, you have more sick kids, When you cut reporting, you have more crime, you have more corruption that's not exposed. And that is what we'll see here. So just like when you kidnap the leader of a nation, you open the door to second order effects. That's what
we're looking at here. 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,