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 according to an AP NORC poll, Trump has lost thirteen points of approval among Republicans in the last six months. We have such a great show for you today. The Society of the Rule of Laws George Conway stops by to talk about the Oversight Committee
drops with Trump's ties to Jeffrey Epstein. Then we'll talk to the Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota, Peggy Flanagan about her run for the Senate. But first the news.
So, Molly, it appears after the Democrats have had a news cycle where they've been told they are not fighters, that the House stems are going to try to remedy this with a plan.
I want to expladre to our listeners.
I always want to explain to our listeners. Let us explain the plan. Basically, a guy called Mike Johnson this sweagure of the House. So really, Trump is the Speaker of the House. As he has said before, he sent everyone home because he did not want to have them voting on the Epstein petition. Well, the government shut down. Johnson refused to swear in ad Alita Grajava. She will now be sworn in. She will be the signature needed
for the discharge petition. Now, I want to pause for a minute because what's going to happen now is there will be a discharge petition. It will then go to the Senate. This is part of this thing where you have to just you're getting Republicans to vote on things, so they say we want your inferency, and then you get them to vote to say no, do not release the Epstein files. So this is the point of this exercise. But right now what we're seeing is a ton of
Epstein emails being just flooded into the media. Now, where are they coming from. This has nothing to do with this discharge petition. The estate was subpoena by Rocana, so that's how these emails are coming. But the point is there are just a ton of emails. There are more and more and more emails, and that's what we're seeing now. The discharge petition will go to the Senate. The Senate will vote against releasing it because Republicans control the Senate.
I think that is where this ends. But you still are making them vote against it. You're still taking them on the record. These are people who said they believed in transparency, and here they are not believing in transparency, So this is all meaningful. I also want to point out the fact that this has become such an enormous news cycle is because the people who are leading the committee on oversight are pretty smart and they are making sure that the stuff is out when it needs to
be out. For example, this stuff came out today right the day of the discharge petition signing or the day you know that they're going to get back into work in the House. And the reason why it came out today was because every but he was organized. So bravo Robert Garcia for doing oversight right. And you really do see why it's important to have people in those jobs and not just people who feel they deserve them because they've worked there so long.
Do you have a favorite one of the leaks so far?
No, I don't have favorites because the whole thing is so dark and it's about sex trafficking.
My favorite is what Jeffrey Epstein says, have the mask by housebed about Donald almost walking through the door, leaving his noseprint on the glass as young women were swimming by the pool and he was so focused he walked straight into the door.
Yeah, that was a bad one. There are a lot of bad ones here. I mean there's also the Trump knew what we were doing. There's I mean, it's just it's everything you would think. It's Michael wolf giving Jeff Epp advice.
So shocking Michael wolf.
Somebody else tipping off Jeff Epp.
I mean, Michael Wolfe a little too close to Jeffrey Epstein for anyone's comfort.
Yeah, I mean, I just think the job of journalists is not to tip off sources.
Okay, the job of journalists may not to be to try to buy whole news outlets with pedophiles.
Yeah.
There are a number of reasons why this is not okay.
So I got really confused. We talked about this on air that when Trump was going to Portland. A lot of even my conservative friends were like, there's these riots here, And then I talked to normal people and they were like, there are no riots. We have now gotten to the bottom of this, which is that Fox News and other conservatives like Andy Neo, we're putting up old footage and footage from other cities pretending it was Portland.
Yeah, and again this is like this news bubble thing, right, Like, are you in such a news bubble that you never even realize what's true or not? Like, what's the news bubble here? It's so bubbly that you're looking at video from four years ago, five years ago. I think it's like worth realizing that here is Donald Trump. This is a person who, as president, has access to some of
the best information. Every single thing you know, vetted explained, you could have, you know, you're the president, you could call the journalists, they come in and explain it to you. And here is my man, Donald Trump looking at an Andy no video from five years ago. Yeah, he's making policy off that.
You're exactly right.
And it's really that Andy Dios said his brand has died because Antifa does not really exist. It is an amorphous thing that maybe a few people will identify with. It's ridiculous.
Speak for yourself.
Oh oh I forgot, I forgot. So by what do you think at the president's job? I personally think of that. A lot of people used to describe it in the pre Trump era as kind of the salesman for America, the ambassador who would say, our country is so great, you guys should really do business here. Look at how great we have it here. Well, Trump says, the United States doesn't have people with quote unquote certain talents to fill jobs domestically.
Yeah, you know who got one of these visas?
Was it Malania?
Yes, Mulania, Mlania's recipient of one of those visas. You've got to bring people in from other countries because Americans don't want those jobs. She had an HB one. It's an Einstein visa skilled worker. Look again, this was never about immigration. This was always about racism, right, Like, if you take them at their word, you make a huge mistake. This is from this amazing interview with Laura Ingram where she says, is this stuff from home depot? And he says,
absolutely not. And you have these goal hideous gold things on the sides of the oval which are clearly from home depot. But this Laura Ingram, who not a fan of immigration, to say the least, at least or anything. She responded, we have plenty of talented people here, Trump applied. And remember Trump is always trying to serve these like billionaire donors. So Trump replied, no, you don't, No, you don't, you don't have certain talents and people have to learn.
You can't take people off an unemployment line and say imy to put you in a factory where we're going to make missiles. And then he pointed to the September Ice ray of a Georgia Hondai facility where authorities arrested and deported hundreds of South Koreans. That was like an international incident. I just want to point out it's the worm gooing.
Yes, I know, but you.
Know billions of dollars in investment from the South Koreans. Then their people got put in jail. That's still going that. I don't know what the status is. It was a real disaster for Brian Kemp, who had just convinced Hondai to put the factory in Georgia. Again, these were like good paying jobs. If you have tariffs to try to get things manufactured in the United States and then you put the people who are making the things in jail or deport them, then you are going to make people
not want to make things in the United States. That's just my hottest take.
It seems pretty summed. So I have a hot take.
Yes, that Ice and any police officers when we know that they're out of absolute control and really are being careless. It's when a baby gets pepper sprayed.
That is a very, very hot take.
I'm going to stand by it.
How many times has a baby gotten pepper sprayed? I feel like that's a sentence I would like to never say.
My sister did studies on how often toddlers shoot people, so I think, unfortunately we're not quite at the rock bottom with us, but worse things do happen.
So Ice pepper sprayed a baby. I think that should be the end of the story. These people are animals, like I think every day they want to make the phrase abolish ice more and more real. By the way, this is a video of the agent's pepper spray of baby, so probably there have been other babies pepper spray like the fact that this was caught on video means that there have been other times. Is a one year old in Chicago, then I know you'll be shocked to hear this. But the Ice agent lied about it.
I've never heard of cops lying when there's footage of things, and because they know that they can act with the pudity, especially ice.
Me neither.
I have never heard of such a thing. George Conway is the president of the Society for the Rule of Law and the host of George Conway explains it all to Sarah Longwell, welcome to Beat Politics, George Conway sitting in my apartment.
Hello, Yeah, this solves the problem of shitty internet access.
So today is one of the many.
It's not the first Epstein drop day. These are kind of a big one.
It's a humongous one though, you know. And and this just a tranche of emails after emails, after emails, after emails.
I only saw the first three because I was busy at meetings with her. More there are like Trump knew about all of.
This email My favorite email was the one I first saw this morning. I'm not favorite, but it's like the one that's sort of like it was like a smoking gun, the closest thing he was smoking gun without pictures, although they were I did see an email later talking about the Yeah, was the one that said Trump is the dog that didn't bite, because basically he had not been the subject of the investigation. And then he is saying it didn't bark, talking about you didn't bite bark.
Okay, sorry, he's.
Like so and that she says it says it to Gleane Maxwell basically, but he was he was in with in my house with so and so it turns out to be Virginia.
Yeah, it's got to be virgin We don't know one of the one in younger because it says and they got her from mar Laga, which is Virginia jew Fry, just the only her. Yeah, I mean that's what it's.
Anyway, he was alone, he was in Epstein's house with a girl name redacted.
And then Gal says, ye know, I was thinking about that too.
Yeah, and you know, I mean, come on, were they there talking about tariffs?
They were not talking about it. I do not think they were talking about tariffs.
I don't think so. I do not think that. I gotta say, I mean, this is like this.
I said, I said this morning that this is like Remember how Ben Bradley, the man it used to be the managing editor or something in the Washington Post back in the day, in the Watergate days, he would always tell us reporters, we need holy shit stories, the stories and make you read and open the papers say holy shit, this is a holy shit story of a different sort. This is a holy shit Times one thousand story. But it's also not surprising, no, exactly, because we know who
Donald Trump is and this is who he is. And the only reason why is it's a holy shit story is because you know, for years of millions of Americans have gone twice twice.
Well, okay, I did the first time. I'm sorry.
You know, they think we can't hear anything about him in the complete denial, and they pretend everything is not real, and they only turn on news sources that don't tell them about the Donald Trump.
But it's not surprising at all.
It's only surprising if you've been doing that, and you know, I think they're probably going to be still be doing that. That's the real question of people really going to pay attention who have who have been in denial about Trump and have this cognitive dissonance about Trump, and I don't know.
I mean, the thing that gets me about these emails is, first of all, Trump knows he's in them, right, he.
Must have known, right, and and what's his face, Todd Blanche, his lawyer.
Everybody knows he's in them because the FBI went through them.
But even before that, well, this is a separate this, this, this is this was subpoena exactly from the estate.
But I was assumed that the that the government had this.
Right, and the government we know from that reporting that the FBI went through what a thousand guys reacting Trump's.
Name looking for this right.
So even but even before this, like Trump and BONDI were like, we're going to release the Epstein files.
We're going to do this, We're going to do that.
How do you have that level of cognitive dissonance, like where you're like, I hung out with this guy, my best friend for a decade, release the files.
Like, you know, Donald Trump doesn't think very well, and he doesn't He's very good thinking in the moment, right, but he's not really good about actions and consequences, which is why he's a criminal, right and convicted criminal in fact, and an adjudicated digital rapist.
He doesn't he just one of these people.
He's just one of these people who's whose psychological growth stopped at age three, four or five. And he just you know, I mean, you just and he doesn't understand that his actions can cause negative consequences to himself. If he does these things and negative consequences occur to him, he doesn't blame himself. He blames you, him, her, these other people, right, and says that, oh, everybody else does this, so I can lie about it because everybody else lies
about it, and he doesn't. He says that, you know, in his head, you know, it's of course, you know he didn't. He didn't think this through, right.
But what about BONDI, Like Pam Bondy, she had all those influencers come to the White House.
You know, gave them binders.
I mean, I hate to say this about the Attorney General in the United States, but it just may be that Pam Bondi.
It's a war on it could be. I mean, I don't want to I don't want to go out on a limb here.
This morning, I was reading the cash Battel private jet story from the Washington Post, which is about Cash Battel using the FBI jet basically as you know, just living it up and also ruining investigations and tweeting about them.
Yeah, speaks about investigations, say we are we are investigating this, and then the people skip the country.
Because I say, hey, wait, yeah that's us. Yeah, So I mean I'm going to arrest them first. I don't know, you know, I'm not a cop, and I've never been.
But he's like, normally, before you start talking about the people who you're investigating and you're about to invest arrest them, you arrest them first.
It's it's funny because it's like, I want to pull back for a second, because you and I have been through this fucking administry.
We have been through it together for the last eight years.
We've been friends and million tens of movies all of you, yes, but.
Especially us though, because we've really been through it. Do you think I think something's happened over the last couple of weeks where it's gone from maybe not the last couple of weeks, but yeah, I think since the election, it's gone from this is all really scary and we're going to end up in an autocracy to oh, it's Trump, Well, you know he's The incompetence is back.
The incompetence is back.
And also people are learning that they are not alone in fighting back, and they learned that from the No King's events, and they learn that from the election results. And that's why even I who you know who, you know how I am. I'm not the most pessimistic person in the world, but I've been saying it's always going to get worse before it gets better, even I you know, there's a there's a skip in my step, you know.
But the thing is, it will still get worse before it gets better, because this does not remove him from office, now, you know, I mean even though we have people like Bobert and and he's voting for this in Marjorie Taylor me signing this discharge position petition which now is to eighteen is that to eighteen once?
This once this congressman, I think she got sworn in today, right, Yeah, but it dies in the Senate. I mean, the thing is, but it's but it's make But the point is.
Yes, it makes them vote, and it shows that there are cracks in the facade, but it's not gonna it's not going to be to do all and end all, and we're still stuck with him for the duration. Yes, And do you ever see the movie.
Wagon the Doll. Yes, I love that movie.
We're in there, yeah, yes, and Venezuela, you know, and yeah, you know the thing that always happens with these narcissistic psychopaths who get in positions of power and then inevitably get themselves in trouble like, yeah, you know, they told him so, don't they class up? And he did it anyway and it didn't work out so well. They get themselves into deep ship and the problem is they ultimate we blow themselves up. I say this, I've said this
podcast fifty times. They blow themselves up. And the problem is the blast radius. Are we going to be within the blast radius? And this is you know, I mean, he's done so much damage. Yeah, in just a few months. The blast radius is already large. And as he becomes more desperate, you know, it's it's going to get worse and we have to prepare ourselves and we really need to stand up more. Yeah, you're not not cave like eight or eight people did in.
The Democratic Senate leadership.
Yes, Chuck, we're talking to you.
Ump, No, fe I mean, the point is they should have kept the government. You're going to hut down the government, keep it shut down.
He must have made him really mad the other day what you did.
Listen, all I'm going to say is let's just talk about where Trump is right now. Okay, So he's in his house eating McDonald's, watching Fox News's throwing ketch up on the wall.
What happens. The odor in there has got its terrible what happens now?
I mean, he's seventy nine, he is desperately clinging to power.
I mean, do you think it's just weeks of distraction?
Now?
I think he's going to go on the attack somehow.
He's going to say the emails were fake, right, He's going to say, there's nothing in there that implicates me. He's going to say that, just ask Klain Maxwell, No, don't do that.
He's going to say.
There is going to be no logic to anything he does, and the answers, the things that he will spout out as usual, it'll be like, you know what, I don't know the game twister? Will you spin the thing? Like one day he's going to say this, the next day he'll say the one on the like the yellow piece of the pie. And it's going to be completely the opposite of what he said the other day. And none of it's going to be consistent, and it's all just
going to be a bunch of noise. And he's going to blow a few things up, yeah, which may be Portland or maybe Caracas.
Right, and that, and it is really we really have handed over the nuclear code to a complete limited.
Correct yes for the second time, Yes, second time. Yes.
I And he's talking about the news like I have these great nuclear weapons I want to test one moment.
Yeah, it's pretty it's it's not good.
I wonder if we could just talk for a minute about how sort of like how you chip away at the base. So like there was this very good pulling that just came out that chose the Republican He's not he's being blamed for the economy.
Yes, because he's president. He's president.
And what that's the thing about being president is presidents have less impact on the economy than people assume they do, right, and so but that but the problem is people assume the presidents have everything to do with the economy, and therefore you get blamed.
If inflation goes up like a blip.
Biden, or if it goes up a lot, or it doesn't or something doesn't happen perfectly, it's your fault, even if you can trace it back to something that your predecessor did, or you can trace it to something that the Saudi's did with oil, or you can trace it to some extern a war. But the point about it is Trump always takes credit for things that he's not entitled to take credit for. And he says that he is the man who controls everything and is the do
all and end all and the brilliant thing. And he's been talking about how wonderful is tariffs are, and it's me, me and me, I take credit for everything. So of course he's going to get blamed. And this time, actually he's having more of an impact on the economy than any other president because he's doing fucked up things.
Because of the tarriffs. The tariffs, Yes, what.
Do you think? I wonder what the tariffs. It's clearly a Donald Trump fantasy. He always thought that this was the way.
I mean, I can't figure out the tarriffs thing. Honestly, I think what he liked. I think I think he does have some quarter Bank idea that tariffs represents strength and they're good historically, which is complete and utter bullshit. Any historian, any economist, any economic historian, anybody with any common sense thinks it through for ten minutes and knows anything about the supply the laws of some lining. The
man would think so too. But I think the thing he loves about tariffs is it makes him feel powerful, like right, shack them up and people come saying, mister President, we want we want to you know, write, please don't do that to us. We are at your mercy. And then he can lower them again, raise them again. And that's part of what you've been seeing with this, like oh, the tariffs up and down off. On any given day, he's up and it's like, oh, we have the greatest trail to eat trade deal?
What trade deal?
It doesn't exist, right, It's he loves the power of being able to do something with his fucking sharp beat.
Right.
It makes people squirm and come to him. And it's just like the It's like this is like pardons, right. He loves pardons because he gets to write on a piece of paper.
It doesn't matter who they are.
It makes him feel powerful and people have to come and supplicate to him.
I think that's right, And I mean it's so it's so funny because it's like so much of Trump is from this nineteen eighties that I grew up in in New York, and so much of it is like he's the big man with the big family real estate business, doling out to the kids, right like you do as someone who had like a grandfather who was wealthy and who did stuff like that.
Feels very familiar. You know, it's like it's the mob. You come to me, you asked me for when do you ever come come to my house in friendship? So there is that mom father.
It's the mafia thing, but it's also the rich parent doling out the cat.
Yes, you know right right, it's the but he's doing it.
And even then the thing about the like when I think about the food stamps, like this administration was fighting with the courts about the food stamps and sending out food stamps during the shutdown. Now the governor of Wisconsin, Tony Ivers, he ended up filling the ETF cards, right, he filled the food stamp cards A T E B T. This the uh, some of these democratics.
You I don't go anywhere. All I do is tasks.
But there have been democratic governors. But like the idea that here's Donald Trump, his administration is fighting. It's not his money, it's taxpan dollars.
You think Donald Trump separates his the fisk, the public fisk with his fisk, or his powers governance powers, or his white house with some people's house. Everything belongs to Donald Donald is his These are my generals, this is my East Wing that I get them demolished to build my all my ballroom for nine.
Do you think there will be more George Conways, more people who are smart and can't take it? Or do you think it's over that period of people that I can't think.
I don't think they're going to be like me. Okay, like we're basically I've gotten to the point where I just any more fs to get it. Well, they call me a Democrat, I might as well. I might as well just do it because there's one political party in this country and the other one's just a crazy call.
Right. So but we'll get to that. We first got to know each other.
What in twenty eighteen or twenty nineteen when I was off, when I had off the reservation and I was kind of lobbing shit out there, and people.
Were saying, you know why I did that? Why?
Because I thought if I showed that I could do it with my now ex wife in the fucking White House, right, people would just say, yeah, I've had fed up too, I can do it too. It's like h and guess what I mean. I had a few people do it. I formed this group of checks and bounces that became outsider for the rule of all. Some wonderful, great lawyers, a lot of them from the Reagan adminstray, but by and large my effort to persuade people by going out there and saying, look, I e. Nothing bad will happen
to you. If you say this was a complete and other failure, well it.
Wasn't a complete and utter failure. But I know you feel that way.
I feel like I haven't done enough. I want to do more. I don't know what you know. I've been trying to figure out.
I do wonder what's next for you. Well, we will find out. I hope you'll come back to tell us if you end up having a big thing that you want to announce somewhere.
You're just trying to push that idea you're trying to push on me.
I don't know what you're talking about, but I'm just saying that if there were an announcement that one would want to make, this would be a good place to do it, especially because leon Nidas would like George Conway, will you come back?
Yes, all right.
Thank you, Peggy flan Again, it is the Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota. And a candidate for the Democratic primary for Senate in that very state. Welcome to Fast Politics.
Peggy, thanks so much for having me again. I'm happy to be here.
I'm so happy to have you know each other. Lieutenant governor, a great state of Minnesota, and you are now running for the open Senate seat.
Yeah, it's pretty exciting. It's been quite a year as we've jumped into this race.
First, I want you to talk about, like what it's like to run for Senate right now, because this is such a weird moment. You know, in twenty sixteen, you could say Orange Man bad, you would raise ten billion dollars and everyone would be like, we love you. You know, that is not the world anymore. So I want you to talk about being a Democrat in that world. Sure.
So you know, I decided to run for this seat because you know, I'm someone who understands what it feels like to think the bottom could fall out at any moment, and there are so many people who feel that way right now, and frankly, not enough folks who understand what that's like representing us in Washington. And so as I'm traveling across the state, we've done one hundred events so
far since since we've launched. The things that people are telling me is that they want us to be bold, that this like nibbling around the edges business is not helping anybody. I think that there's things like increasing the minimum wage, paid family and medical leave. I think it's time for you know, universal healthcare, medicare for all, you know. And if folks think that somehow we're gonna win by continuing to as Democrats to fight from a defensive crouch,
I think they've got another thing coming, you know. And we had incredible victories a week or so ago, and unfortunately, I think you know what we saw happen and play out, you know, in Washington, d C. With these eight Senate Democrats, we were able to clutch defeat from the jaws of victory. So we got some work to do. And that's what I think I'm seeing is that people just want us to be fighters and not capitulate to Donald Trump and congressional Republicans.
Yes, I wonder what you think about Schumer said that he didn't vote with them, He said that they came to this on their own. What do you think about that?
Sunday night, I was just pissed.
Right.
It is an incredible disapoint and if I'm being honest, it wouldn't have even occurred to me right to vote for the R Like that wouldn't have even been on the table, especially after like the incredible victories that we saw up and down the ballot, because folks are like, oh, Democrats are finally standing up, right, are fighting for me? Are you know, looking at healthcare costs right and how they're going to just skyrocket? And so I just think people deserve more and they want more, and I think
that that's what you can see from this reaction. I certainly don't know the ins and outs of, you know, what happened behind the scenes. What I do know is that, you know, your job as a leader of a caucus is to try to keep folks together. And it's an incredible disappointment. And I feel like, as someone who's running right now, we now just have to like rebuild that trust and demonstrate that fight. And you know, this got
a little bit harder for folks unnecessarily. I don't completely understand it, but I know so that people just were excited because they saw Democrats standing up and having a spine and that's the work. That's the work right now under Donald Trump. You know, we literally see an authoritarian regime that's like coming into power. This is not the time to capitulate, like, it is the time to do
everything we can. And we don't have a whole lot of tools in our toolbox, and this was the one that we had and to just throw up your hands, I don't get it.
I don't either. I also think, and this is something I said to this person when they called me, you underestimate the base at your own peril. At this moment, you are campaigning in Minnesota, like I feel like when I talk to people who are running for office, like you are on the ground talking to the most engaged voters. So what are they telling you?
You know, we're holding what we're calling kitchen table conversations all across the state. It's a little less scripted town hall and more community meeting, so folks are showing up. We've got, of course, a lot of Democrats or dfllers as we call ourselves here and Minnesota, but also people who don't identify with like any political party, but are
just super freaked out by what's happening right now. And then we have Republicans who are showing up too, And that is important to me because I think we don't have to agree on everything right now, but I think the places where we do agree is that we're all being screwed and it is the folks at the very very top who are doing incredibly well. We're being empowered by the Trump administration, and the rest of us have
to fight for scraps. And so the things that I'm hearing, the number one thing that I hear no matter where I am, if I'm in the urban core, if I am in greater Minnesota, is healthcare.
That is the thing.
And this is even before we were talking about the ACA subsidies. I was in Camby, Minnesota and southwestern Minnesota, and there's a woman there who's a librarian and she's married to a farmer. So they they buy in and she said, our deductible is fifteen thousand dollars a year. And she said, I just went to the doctor for five minute medcheck appointment and a cost our family six
hundred dollars. That is just untenable. And so I think it's it's important for us to be really clear that things like prior authorization, right some dude sitting behind a desk, who gets to determine whether or not you get the life saving healthcarier doctor prescribed, Like, we got to get rid of it, or we'll set off frankly like AI or a robot and making that determination. And then I think it's time for universal health care. We need medicare for all. And you know what may have been seen
as like, oh, that's too far, that's too much. Folks are ready, and so like that is the thing that I'm hearing. People want us to be bold, and they're sick of Democrats fighting from a defensive crouch, and so it is, you know, all about being really clear that these are the places that we are going to throw down where we're going to fight for folks. That's what people want.
So you're not going to take pack money, No a pack you know, you don't have to suck up to net and Yahoo. You don't have to go on a trip with him. And I say this as a Jew just nuts. I wonder what sort of the difference is in your race, because you're running against Antie Kraig's member of cockers. This race is really about the difference between one part of the party and the other.
Sure, So I actually think that this is really the fight that is facing the party overall. It is I think the difference between a corporate Democrat and someone who's got progressive values who is going to fight for working people. I absolutely have made the decision to not take corporate pack money because I see that the influence that corporations have in elections is one of the things that's gotten us here on both sides of the aisle.
Right.
I don't want to be you know, I think it's really disingenuous to say I'm going to somehow, you know, hold big pharma accountable to lower the costs of prescription drugs in one hand, and then have another hand I would stretch to collect a check from them. People are smarter than that, right, So I think that is a big difference between my opponents and myself that I don't think the seat should go to the highest bidder. I think it should go to Minnesotan's I am not a
Beltway darling. You know, if this race was held in Washington, d C. She'd probably win. Lucky for me, it's held in Minnesota, and you know, I don't take a pac money. But I also don't think they'd give it to me to be there. You know, I said that I would have voted for the Sanders resolution alongside my senators, Senator Tina Smith and Senator Amyklobachard with regards to offensive weapons this summer because I'm not okay with watching children starve.
I'm not okay with watching children's starve in Gaza. I'm not okay with watching children starve in Minnesota. And that's why we re breakfast and lunch for all kids. Right, That's a consistent value. But it's also why Apak has decided to target this race, or to target me and support my opponents. And I think that I can, you know, say that in the same way that I can hold the Trump administration accountable and speak out if five concerns, I can do the same thing about you know, Benjamin
notat Yahu and his government as well. They're just star and that is I think the choice that is facing so many folks in this country. But also just you know, in this race in Minnesota, do you want the status quo er? Do you want someone who's gonna to fight and won't be beholden to the people are putting the thumb on the scale in Washington.
I think there's been a lot of Democrat business as usual, right like not wanting to upset the Apple car, not wanting to you know, leadership. He is very you know, well this one was elected and you can't move that one. You know, I said, you guys are all ten thousand years old. And one of the things that I think made people the angriest was from twenty twenty to twenty twenty four there was a feeling that Democrats would say, you know, we can't do anything, like this is what
it is. We can't do anything. So you get into the Senate, you will have this real, very safe Senate seed and an opportunity to do really great things. And you're young, so talk us through how you would be different than that.
Absolutely. I mean so I'm an organizer, you know, I was raised on the Wellstone for Senate campaign. That has been so much of the work that I have done, even before I got to elected office, was power mapping who do we need to you know, build a relationship with and move to support this policy change. You know, the very first thing I'm going to do is have ninety nine cups of coffee with people right to build
those relationships. I think that that still matters. And you know, in Minnesota sometimes I got some grief when I was the head of Children's Defense Fund from some of my friends and the Democratic Party because they'd say, like, why are you getting Republicans to author your bills? I was like, because they're in the majority, and two years in the life of a child, this a really long time. We can't wait, you know, to the next biennium to have
healthy birth outcomes for you know, for children. So that I think matters is trying to find you know, that common ground those relationships, but also being really cleared that how I'm campaigning right now doing you know, these events all across the state of Minnesota is also how I'm
going to govern. That I think is what the disconnect oftentimes is about and what you know, you talk about that gap between twenty twenty and twenty twenty four, Oh, we can't do anything, and also tells me that you have to get outside of Washington, DC and talk to real people about what is happening in their lives right now.
Because when you hear about a fifteen thousand dollars deductible or someone being denied life saving care, for their cancer treatment, Like that hits a different kind of way, and you're going to have a different kind of fight when you walk back into the halls of power, because you are accountable and you know the people who are counting on you in this moment. So that for me, I think,
is you know what is so incredibly important. I'm come from resiliency, right, Like I'm not even supposed to be here.
I know what you come from, but tell us sure.
So Section eight is what secured at apartments for me and for my mom, who was a single mom who worked incredibly hard, but sometimes we didn't have enough money to make ends meet. Snap is what kept food on the table for my family, And Medicaid was my healthcare as a kid with really bad asthma, where sometimes I was like in the hospital more than I was out. And so that to me really feels like, you know,
the experience that we need. But also, like I said, you know, I grew up carrying a box of commodity cheese under my arm like a football from the food shelf, right, And so I don't have the same sort of pedigree right that a lot of people serving in Congress or you know, in the Senate too, And I think that's a good thing, you know, And I'm not running to make history, but there's never been a Native American woman to serve in the US Senate before, Like it's probably time, right,
democracy works best when the people who represent us accurately reflect the communities.
So it's important, It's so important. And I also think, you know, I always, as someone who was born basically on sega, I always think about this, you know. I always ask people, like most of the people I know, we're also born on second base, except for exam we're born on their basic and you realize, like, the one thing that Donald Trump said that was really true was that the game is rigged.
Like that he was right, and it spoke to people, right, And I think, like that is our opportunity. Now he understands that the he understood that the game is rigged, right like, and he didn't tell the truth and say I'm going to continue.
You know more exactly right, But.
We can also lean in right to that notion because people get it right, Like, people understand that right now when you go, you know, when I'm in the grocery store and I watch someone, I watch a mom have to tell her kiddo to put something back. They aren't the money, right, Like that is that is a feeling I am deeply familiar with, but also just like the reality that's facing so many folks right now. So we had to just you know, buck up and take some risks.
And you know, if I am leading into people being able to afford their lives and being bold and fighting for the policies that I think are needed and necessary in this moment, and folks aren't all about it, they don't want to vote for me, that's fine because at least I have my integrity at the end of the day. I don't know that everybody can say that in this moment.
No, for sure. And you know, I think so much about the lesson of Kristen Cinema, who came to the Senate and now she lobbies for data centers. You have to have a purity of heart. I guess that's right.
It is that is that is not my dream.
That is worse.
I'm telling you it is literally like that's how we get here, right And I mean that's why you know the things like bands on lobbying, bands on congressional stock trading, all of that anti corruption stuff, that's going to need to happen. I hope that sort of in your mind is the kind of I.
Mean absolutely, I think it. You know, it starts with not taking corporate pack money and you know, edding Citizens United needs to be at the top of our list.
And I think this is why, right, like having more folks with like lived experience serving an office, talking about stock trades, this, that and the other thing, getting those sweet deals once you leave, you know, Congress, we just need more people who like understand what it's like to you know, live paycheck to paycheck and you know, figure that out. But yeah, folks know that the game is rigged.
That is all a part of it. Fighting that corruption, you know, starting with a White House, but knowing that it exists unfortunately in both parties.
Yeah, you know, if you become a senner, what is the first thing you're going to do. So the first thing that.
I'm going to do is again start to build relationships with people, because I think that that really matters. The dehumanization of folks on you know, you know, both sides, I think is one of the things that's led us to this this point. It's harder to attack somebody if you know about their family and you know the things
they care about. But ultimately, you know, I think it is prior authorization is the fight that I want to take on because I have seen it be so heartbreaking and damaging to people healthcare and so you know, an eighty percent of the time when people appeal a prior authorization, it goes through, so like it's just a game. It's
completely unfair. And even you know, for me, right, like I've spent hours on the phone fighting with my insurance company to make sure that my daughter right can get one inhaler that takes the place of two inhalers that she can take once a day instead of twice a day. And I'm really lucky that her pomonologist is like we're going to the matt like, but that those kinds of things.
It is just about this bottom line. It's cruel. And the people who can spend the time on the phone like I can are the ones who you know, like aren't working in that you know, factory job all day where you have a five minute break. It's outrageous, So we can do better. That is one of the first fights that I want to take on, but just generally want to make sure that people can't afford the lives that they want to live.
Peggy, thank you. I think talk when you're in the general awesome, No more sick, Jesse Cannon.
I have been talking to a lot of New York business owners because, let's be honest, I'm a little too chatty, which is why i went into podcasting. And one of the things they keep telling me over and over again is the tourists have not been here, and we're seeing lots and lots of restaurants closing. Reading Eater, which diatribes New York tourisms restaurant industry, you're seeing the ramp up of restaurants going out of business at a clip that's
starting to be pretty alarming. That there's a lot of articles and you'll be shocked to see a recent study shows Canadians, some of our biggest tourists are staying home and not coming here, to the tune of five point seven billion dollars of tourism.
Yeah, it turns out that declaring war on another country, especially when it is your closest neighbor and alla makes them not like you. It's a shocking development. You would think right to declare war on a country which was sort of known as your ally. I think this is a great example of why everything in trump Ism is so wrong, is so off, is so incredibly dysfunctional and disappointing. Right, I'm not surprised by any of this. It's just such
an unnecessary thing, like all this stuff. It's like Trump created all these problems. Like, Okay, So, Canadians traditionally make up the largest group of international tourists the US. Twenty eight percent of our seventy two point four million visitors in twenty twenty four were Canadian. Ano they're not coming, and they're not coming because they don't want to end up in an ice facility, because they don't want to support a country that they feel it doesn't like them,
doesn't appreciate them. You know, this is so stupid. It's like with so many things in Trump to point out, which like he told us he was going to do it, it's very stupid and then he did it.
Yep, I will tell you Canada is still pretty woke. We were actually pretty shocked how woke it was when we went there. So it's no shock they don't want to support the stupidity that we're doing here.
Oh well, Canada. 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.