George Conway, Douglas Brinkley & Michael Tomasky

But first we have the one, the Only, George Conway. Welcome back, too, Fast Politics, your friend and mine. George Conway. Oh, how are Yeah? I'm fine. We haven't had any insurructions lately. It's good. That is good. First, I want to start

by asking you about the Georgia Grand Jury. Yes, the jury, Foreman, it's going to be a great Saturday Night Live skin it really is, right, right, She's like that one wasn't Michigan The guy in the red vest remember the guy in the red vest ken bone, The guy in the red vest ken bone. That's right? Okay, yeah, okay, okay. So I want to ask you special grand jury put together by Fanny Wells, it was already out right, it was done, her service was done, the deliberations were done, right.

I mean, I've seen some suggestions in the press. I don't know, Georgia lost. I've seen some suggestions in the press that she actually huge the line that was appropriate for a Georgia special grand jury, which is different from a federal grand jury because you'd never see a federal grand jury do this. But one one way or the other, it just wasn't particularly helpful. But at the end of the day, it's just comic relief. And that's my bottom line on this. Doesn't it bias? Like now? What? Now?

What the I mean? Like, so, now Fanny Wellis is going to make these indictment recommendations. Is this, you know, take the case to another grand jury and that jury has the power to indict, and the defendants will make whatever noises they want to make about this, but it's not going to help. And at the end of the day, this is all going to be forgotten because we'll actually see the indictments, we'll see who's been indicted, and we'll start seeing more evidence. When do we think that happens?

She told this court, the court that released the grand jury report. In part she told that judge that indictments were imminent. But you know, imminent can mean. I mean, some people mean imminent means it's they're they're going to the hospital have a baby. Some people mean imminent means we're getting into it in a few weeks. Logically, imminent wouldn't mean six months. I think imminent would mean at

most a couple two or three months. Is this my guess, And just timing wise, she's got to get this cranking. She's got to get this cracking. It's annoying on for a while, and you don't really want to have these cases brought in the middle of the silly season. What is the silly season. The silly season is when you know, people start wearing red hats and actually going to Iowa and things like that, And that's going to happen in the next few We're not We're almost there. Okay. So

that's one case of Donald Trump's many legal liabilities. The second case is Jack Smith. Jack Smith the new Bob Mueller. I think he's a younger and faster model. Okay, So tell me what you're what your sense is there? Well, I mean, we solve a report in the New York Times yesterday or the day before days all playing together. Now, really, I have no idea what that's like. You have no idea exactly. Jared and Ivanka have been subpoena to appear before that grand jury. There is only one reason why

you would do that, because they're pretty and tall. They're pretty and tall, yes, And that's the money. It's like lots of sawty money, not just money. Mister Kushner tell us about NBS is he is? He is? He is? He really a fun guy, he seems everyone else oh above. I know I make these slatching jokes about the Saudis

because I despise them so much. Yes, all right, so you know the only reason why you want to talk to them is because they had access to Trump on January sixth, and so the only reason why you do that is you are focusing on him as the talking Meadows isn't the target here. Meadows may even cooperate for all we know. So you know, there's really nobody else at the end of the day for those two who matters.

They are a window into Trump. I mean, they kept sending Ivanka down to the Oval to talk to him and you know, trying to get them off the ledge and talk some sense into him. These two are the worst, right, she was supposed to be this influence right where she was going to get him. In their defense, which I hate to say those words, in their defense, he's completely uncontrollable. He's completely manipulable. But he's uncontrollable, and people don't understand it.

There is they think just because they can manipulate him. He's old, he's stupid, he's narcissistic. You can play on his ego and that's why you know, I mean, you read these stories. It's been for years. Like the last person it's almost important to read the last person to talking, because everyone knows how to go in there and persuade him by saying that you're so smart. Look at this idea that I just thought of it, you just thought

of I just thought it from you. You know. There are all sorts of tricks they used to manipulate him, but they can't control him. That's the problem, right, right, right, that's the mistake that they made. Right, No, that's for sure true. As we see this who going then there's your friend in mine e Gene Carroll's case. That's the sleeper case O case. And also this is going to be great when I get to go on TV to

talk about it. Full disclaimer here and you need this disclaimer too, Oh good, I like any disclaimer that I am also covered by Gene Carroll met her lawyer, Robbie Kaplan because I met Jean and a party at your apartment. That's right, don't I know it? And I told Jean that she had to go out and get this lawyer. And I then called this lawyer, Robbie Kaplant, up and said it is I have a case for you, and the rest is unfortunate history for Donald J. Trump. So

tell me about that case. Though now you can comment Donald as a That case is going to go to trial on April twenty fourth, and in one way or the other. And there are really two cases. There's one case that's the defamation case based upon the statements that Trump made while he was president when the accusations first came out. He said, she's not my type. I've never matter of course, there was a photograph of him meeting her. That's a definite action. And then New York passed this

thing called the Survivor's Law. It basically it says it revived all sexual assault to sexual harassment claims for a period of I don't know how many a year, I think after the passage or the statutes, so that people victims whose claims were cut to up by a shorter statue of limitations in the past one chet chance to bring their case one time, and that's what she then brought the case against Trump on sexual assault, which for the statute of limitations for which would have otherwise run.

So now there are two cases and they basically turned on the same issue. Did Donald Trump rape Jean Carroll? If he did, then that he also defamed her when he said she was lying, And if he did, he's also liable now for sexual assault under the survivors launch.

So it's basically two cases and one depending on like one event that happened in nineteen nineties, to which there are multiple witnesses in the sense that there are you know, she told people immediately after it happened, and then apparently there's going to be some other evidence about you know, coming from people who are who are there at the town to gap. But we'll say, do you think that case has a real shot. It's not a question of it as a shot. I don't I don't know how

it's trial for Donald Trump. Is he really going to testify and subject himself to cross examination? Because hasn't he been ordered to testify? Now he had to testify that position. He doesn't have to testify in his own defense at trial. Robbie Kaplan, the plan lawyer could call him as a hostile witness. But if he doesn't testify to what happened that day, there is no evidence on his side. But on the other hand, he can't testify because he'll get

cut the shreds. Robbie'll kill him right, and it's going to be a spectacle. His best play is to not dignify the trial by showing up and just making the case about damages and saying we think it's just ridiculous. And then what happens. He's gonna be held liably. He's going to have the red jet. But there's no criminal. No, there's no criminal, but he's going to be The evidence is going to be very embarrassing to him. And the way he could compound the embarrassment, I think is by testify.

I think he's going to want to basically take to take a default on liability. You don't think he's going to try to testify. I think he'd be insane too. But he is insane, right, all right? So who knows? On the other him, they were successful in getting him to flee the Fifth Amendment four hundred and some long times at his civil deposition in the ARKG case. So you did no times, then sense will prevail on him. That's sensitive. But he's you know, on the other hand,

he opens his mouth about everything all the time. But what kind of civil award could this be? Do you think? I don't know what damage is sought? Are I don't know what the expert reports say or anything like that. But you know, it's basically argues that she was she's have an emotional injury from what happened in the department store, and then she also suffered damages from the libel. Some people wouldn't go near her and hire her for things, and so on and so forth after that. Right, it's

not going to bankrupt them. But you know, the most important thing is just the testimony about what he did and the fact that there's nothing, nothing, that stands on his side. That and she's going to be a much more credible witness I think than he would ever be right right, right, And also she doesn't have years of lying to her her standing. Yes, Donald Trump could not withstrand cross examination on any subject for more than five

minutes or one minute. Frankly, he can't answer class questions coherently, He can't answer questions truthfully, and basically you get gibberish

and insanity after a certain amount of time. I mean, we saw that in the first this book that Woodward wrote, which I forget the names of which the books, but the first one he wrote about, you know, he wrote about the defense of the Mueller investigation and how Jim Doubt, his own lawyer, put him through a cross examination to try to figure out how, you know, how to how to prep him for being interviewed by Mueller. And basically conclusion is that I can testify to lie his ass off,

he just will lose it. I know, you're not a Republican anymore, but you really are a Republican. So who do this sort of non crazy Republicans vote for in this primary? Look, I mean, if I were voting in a Republican primary, which I've been, because I will not registered as a Republican for a number of years until the rot is completely gone, and I don't see that happening anytime soon. I vote for Sinnoni and Hogan. This

is more sane. Yeah, yeah, you know, and I do that because I mean, look, they're a little maybe they're a little more liberal than I might like. In sort of a normal world where we had sensible political discourse, I'd probably'd be slightly to the right of them, not too much, I think, I don't know, but in this environment, you know, so basically the big question for me is, you know, just you know, call out a lot, a

big lot. I even have sympathy for people who I know know the truth and have been willing to sort of hint at it. I can even accept some of that. I mean, you know, it's like, I'm not vote for Mitch McConnell for president. I don't think anybody would. I'm not even sure a Lane would. Yeah, but you know, so I have this, I have this now soft spot in my heart for you that develops right because he's not fullishit. Well, he is fullishit. I mean he is full of shit, but not in about the election in

a typical politician kind of way. Okay, in a regular regular machine politician kind of way, which is fine, you know, in an ordinary environment. But the thing about McConnell is, I know, deep down he hates Donald Trump, despises Donald Trump to test his behavior everybody as much as you alide right right now, probably more, probably more because it made his life difficult, right It's crushed his dream of taking away Social Security. You gave you a pod? Yes,

it cost him a job. Yeah, Oh well, thoughts prayers neither. I want to ask you one more question, which is, I mean, let's just game this out for a minute. Does de Santis get the nomination? No, okay, it's possible as an outside shot at it, What do you think happens? Because I think you have a pretty interesting I do. I have a pretty gunn Here's might be a trunk will get the nomination and he will get bailed, but

he will not win the general. And what I think is, I don't think right now that the primary is set up so that Trump can be defeated. I mean, there are probably fifty percent of Republicans of a war who want him to go away. Many of those people would probably vote for him anyway if depending on who the other choices were a lot of those people would. But what matters is the fact that it doesn't take fifty

percent to win the nomination. I mean, there are these you know, winner take all delegate rules that kick in pretty early, as I understand it, And so you know, you get twenty seven percent of the vote and that guy gets twenty four you get all the delegates in a lot of these states. The way you beat Trump is one on on and going after him hammer and tone. I don't think it's going to be one on one at any point or soon enough for the Santis to win.

I don't think, and I don't think the Santists would do what it's necess you do, which is to go hammer and tongue at Trump. And I think the nam is going to be everybody's going to go attack the Santis, and Trump's going to be attacking the Santis. Right, everybody's not to talk about the orange elephant that shout on

the stage. You know, he's going to get bit of a free ride, and he's going to get his thirty five percent, and he's going to get the nomination and he will you know, he'll post bail and he'll be the first actively indicted, maybe even trying a criminal case, presidential candidate, a nominee of a major party in history, and he's going to ferment violence because if he can't get out by getting presidential immunity of being reelected again, he'll He's wanted to take every everyone down with him,

which is what malignant narcissist, narcissistic psychopaths do. Even if the Santists were able to beat Trump one on one in a race that I just don't see happening. But if it happened and he was he was got sixty or seventy percent of the vote and got the nomination or even fifty, you know he's gonna end up with twenty or thirty percent of Republicans pissed at him. And Trump would even run as a third party candidate just

to just to screw things up of spite. Yeah, I mean that seems likely to Rick keeps saying that people in case he's going to trial, and he wants to basically say this, I'm being persecuted and because I'm running, both parties have conspired against me, and you know he's going to do that. I don't do that before anything else. So it's going to be the biggest It's going to be a biggest shit show because we've seen in the

last one hundred and sixty years of American history. Is there going to be a change in George Conway's life. It's possible. It's possible. Okay, So that I think is uh, you know, not not nothing, George Conway. I hope you will come back. Will you come back? You are a troublemaker. You are a troublemaker. You are such a trouble maker. I hope you will come back. Come on, it's fun. Hi. Doug Brinkley is the author of Silent Spring Revolution, Welcome

Too Fast Politics. Doug Brinkley, thank you so much for having me. Molly appreciate it. I'm very excited to have you. We are second generation friends because you have been on panels with my mother absolutely and I've watched on video of panel you did with Playboy with your mom recently, which I just love talking about the Second Feminist Revolution and just where things are at today. It was a really interesting panel you did. Oh well, thank you, mom

and daughter swapping stories. It was great. You know, we have a dog and pony show, but you are an expert in this field about this political history of environmental disaster. For lack of a better phrase, yeah, well, you know, so, I grew up in a town called Perrysburg, Ohio, along the Mammy River, and I was there in nineteen sixty nine when the Kayahoga River caught on fire. That's the great industrial waterway by Cleveland, and I mean little match you would go up and fire, and then Lake Geary

was dying. The novelist Kurt Vonnegut said it's dying of human excrement in clorox bottles. And doctor Seuss wrote about Lake Geary, Smeary, Lake Gary. And unfortunately Ohio has been treated very shabbily from an environmental point of view. Companies come here and run willy nilly and shotgun over the landscape. That's one of the reasons one has to be concerned about the chemical derailment that just occurred and the explosion

and a seemingly lack of immediate strong federal response. People in Ohio feel like their rivers and their landscapes are often abused by industrial chemical companies. So I want to ask you about this book you wrote, Silent Spring Revolution. You focused on a period of time and the leaders who got involved in this great environment mental awakening. Can you explain a little bit about how that came about and sort of what this was. We've had three environmental waves.

It used to be the word conservation, So forgive me for saying environmental to an era when that work didn't exist. But for listeners it's easier for me to use the word environmental. The first was Theodore Roosevelt from nineteen o one to nineteen o nine, and tr really started putting the federal large s on things like creating our US FARS Service. Today, if you look at a map and see all these national fars, they were born during the

Roosevelt pr administration. He started using executive power the Antiquities Act of nineteen o six. The White House had the power to go in and say you're not mining the Grand Canyon for zinc, abstos and copper, and if you don't want it as a national park, the national parks have to be approved by Congress, and Congress didn't want the Grand Canyon. R then used executive power to save what became over a million acre national monument later became

park when the politics were better. So that era, that first wave was quite exciting because Roosevelt by nature, tr was a wildlife conservationist. He went to Harvard and naturalist studies. He wrote a book as an undergraduate called The Summer Birds of the Adirondack. And so we had a president who really got conservation and elevated it. And didn't he have a lot of wild pets too. He had thirty

seven at one point in the White House. His favorite was a little dog named Skip that could climb trees, but he also had parrots snakes. Emperor highly Selassie of Ethiopia had gifted him a hyena, which Roosevelt and gave to the National Zoo. Wandering around the White House was Josiah, a badger that a little girl gave President Roosevelt in a box in Nebraska, and he fed it with a

baby bottle milk and potatoes and grew up. And badgers are colonial animals, meaning they'll play with they'll never turn on the family they're grown up with, but they'll attack anybody outside of the perfect pet perfect Yeah, exactly, But so it actually bit a congressman that attack with the badger in the White House forced near to Roosevelt to bring the badger to his home in Long Island Sagamore Hill, but it's buried and with the cemetery stone right at

Sagmore Hill the badger Josiah So Roosevelt was a Doctor Doolittle like figure. TR kept his pockets filled with nuts to feed the squirrels. Every day. He started working on a book about the birds of Washington, DC. As president, really remarkable Roosevelt and environmentalism and outdoor world. And I wrote a book called The Wilderness Warrior about that. I led you on a tangent, but I want you to get back to it because what you're talking about is

incredibly interesting. So the second president who led this second environmental revolution was who, oh, it was Franklin D. Rose Belt. Okay, to understand TR and FDR, I mean, Theodore Roosevelt was from New York. FDR was from New York. Theodore Roosevelt went to Harvard. FDR went to Harvard, and they were fifth cousins. But Theodore Roosevelt was assistant Secretary of the Navy. FDR was assistant Secretary of the Navy. Theodore Roosevelt was Governor of New York. FDR was Governor of New York.

Theodore Roosevelt liked the Big Navy and loved conservation. FDR loved both. And Theodore Roosevelt had a niece, Eleanor, who FDR married, right, So the two Roosevelts really elevated environmental concerns to the very top of the national agenda. And in fact, when it used to be inaugurations of presidents were in March, and the famous New Deal kickoff of

FDR in March of thirty three. His first New Deal program was the Civilian Conservation Corps, which paid unemployed workers a dollar a day to tree plant, and from nineteen thirty three to nineteen forty two, the CCC plant to nearly three billion trees across America because we were just like in Ohio right now, it's an ecological disaster of the whole country. It wasn't just the stock market in the depression. It was the dust bowl and the Great Plains.

We had cut all of our hardwood trees, drained all the swamps. Right, we had been farming wrong, and that had killed the land. Yeah, we've been farming wrong, and we now we brought science into agriculture and forestry under FDR. And he was the progenitor of eight hundred state parks during the New Deal, and say places like the Great Smokies, the Everglades, the Channel Islands of California, the Olympic Forest. Want to go on and on with what FDR did

with others. It was a movement. So the third wave that my new book is Silent Spring Revolution, doesn't have a Roosevelt in it, and it didn't have a president that really loved the natural world like these two Roosevelts, I mean, tr and FDR loved Henry David Thurreau and you know, and we're autub honors and all this. And I had to begin my book in nineteen forty five because the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while gave us victory over Japan, concerned a lot of

public scientists and public moralists. Is this the doom of mankind? And people started getting information and data, scientific info on radiation, fallout, sickness, cancer, leukemia. Yet we were willy nilly testing nuclear weapons in the Nevada Desert, right, people were six six six well. And also we were building bombs in Los Alma, Yeah, New Mexico, because the Southwest became a nuclear range. What happened is people I write about in my book Rachel Carson, who

was from Pennsylvania. She had done her advanced degree in zoology at John's Hopkins studied at Woods holl in Massachusetts. Anybody listening read Rachel Carson's trilogy on ocean life. They're remarkable. So let's get now to what's happening in Ohio because there's a historical president. But there's also an opportunity here

for the Biden administration to get serious about conservation. Again. Well, the Biden administration has done a good job on climate change, but unfortunately, because I'm admer of President Biden, the administration was slow in Ohio. In my book, I write about when Nixon was president in eight days and the Santa Barbara oil spill happened, and Nixon's sent Walter Hickle, the Interior Secretary, to California, and right when he was arriving, he heard the White House saying it wasn't so bad

in California. Yes, there's some birds that are got in oil, but it's going to be okay. Hickle got ahold of Nixon and said, do not minimize. It's a disaster. Do not minimize. And Nixon listened to that. And avoided the blame for the spill. Biden administration didn't seem to want to make this into a big environmental flash point moment, right, but it is, and they're going to have no choice.

Then they have no choice. That president didn't come, Kamala Harris didn't come, Buddha Jedge only came after Trump, and the EPA of Chief, who I like and Amyer was seemed slow out of the gate, and it's unfortunate, but when these disasters happened like this, you have to be on the ground and have a bullhorn moment where you're saying I'm here. And Biden is so good at hugging and emphasizing with people, it would have been a natural

scene for him. But I think he may have been planning the Ukraine trip to keep and kind of neglected Ohio and they're paying a political cost for it in the public square right now. Right. It's interesting because this

is actually a real opportunity. What's happened. I mean, so one of the things that Trump did was he really ran on deregulation, right he would say, for every regulation, you know, we're going to take away five And nobody was able to thread the needle between deregulation and environmental catastrophes in such a clear way as we're seeing right now right here. Absolutely, and so they do. You know, the blame of the Trump administration for gutting EPA, for

massive deregulation. I could go on and on, but when a crisis of the environment happens, the president has to respond in a forty eight hour window while people are traumatized. And you know, I remember when Barack Obama went to Flint later and then drank the water. It was a photo op moment. But it may people think maybe I should be able to drink our water. There's confusion going on in Ohio and Pennsylvania right now, you know, people saying all that rash is and it isn't important, it's

not so bad. And then cameras showed get fish and wildlife in a creek. Right People's pets are dying. We actually last week we had the incredible Aaron Brockovich on this podcast and she said that she had been told that people's pets were dying, which struck me as really bad. And Aaron, today, I'm in Ohio right now. She is at ground zero. She's there today. Where do we go

from here? What do we do? Obviously the railroads are going to pay up the gazoo for this, and they fucking should excuse my fringe, absolutely full agreement, and it'll be raining class action suits. What does the Biden administration? I would have this public spokesperson. It's unusual for a White House to farm it out, but I would now let Shared Brown be the voice for the White House. I would appoint him. He's loved in Ohio because he's

very good at constituent politics. And if he goes and puts his arm around the mare and visits with people, he has credibility in Ohio as being a compassionate senator who cares about environmental justice issues. So I think he has to be elevated. Now. I'm afraid Biden Harrison Buddha jugs that wots their window to be the voice of this. Yeah, it's really interesting, and I mean you say this as

we are both fans of Biden. But I think in my mind there a number of issues here, and the biggest one is, you know, how do we protect the land in Ohio and the people who are there. I mean, do you have any sense on what the plan there is? The first thing that has to happen is FEMA never should have said they're not going to be there. It's not in their Ballywick. FEMA presence should have been everywhere. There's going to have to be a shakedown. Even Nixon

would shakedown polluters after Kuyahoga and make him pay. The White House and cher Brown have to be the voice of anger that this has gone on for this many weeks, that people are telling you that the idea was minimize it and let people get back in their houses. But any mother and father with children would be terrified within a hundred mile area here of whether you would want to be there, putting your child's long term risk of cancer, leukemia, and on and on at risk. So it happened. It's

not an immediate solution. We're obviously going to be a massive cleanup effort, but there everybody that lives in that community needs to be paid. In my book, I wrote about nineteen forty eight Dinorah, Pennsylvania, where the factories there. It was so polluted. One day and the summer, you know, it was hot, and everybody in the community of Dinora got sick. Twenty people died a respiratory illness, and it

became where the word smog was born. There's even a little museum in DeNora, Pennsylvania for the history of smog. But that triggered a look at why can't we breathe in New York City through the smog? Why is laf smog? And it led to December nineteen sixty three Clean Air Act, which attacked stationary pollution of factories. We now are going to have to look at the railroad industry in a new light. This utter recklessness by the Norfolk, Southern folk.

I mean, it is a really interesting opportunity for legislators to remind all of us why they exist right why the government needs to regulate things. The thing I wanted to actually ask you about was Nixon and the EPA, because that seems very counterintuitive. Well, I know, and that's what I mean to your point, Molly, when you said these crises can get you know, they're very very likely in Ohio right now. JD. Vance and Shared Brown can get on the same page. It's that's not far betched

on this issue. But Nixon decided to work with Henry M. Jackson Scoop Jackson, Democrat from Washington, who was just won the North Cascades National Park Battle and was an environmentalist. Nixon worked with Jackson because Jackson did not criticize the Vietnam War. Where George McGovern you, Jim McCarthy, Gaylord Nelson, I can name you twenty Democrats that were denouncing Nixon's

policy in Southeast Asia, Jackson didn't. Nixon worked with Jackson, and in April twenty second, nineteen seventy, we had Earth Day, the first one, and Nixon saw that there were these teachings everywhere, and he ended up planning a tree on Earth Day and giving Interior Department employees the day off. He was worried that they were gonna it was an anti war trick Earth Day, but when it came and went and it seemed to be a positive Earth consciousness event.

Nixon in the summer of nineteen seventy worked with Democrat Scoop Jackson and Congressman John Dingle of Michigan, and they cobbled together EPA and it opened its doors in December nineteen seventy and under its first director, Administrator William Ruckles House, it was awesome. The first EPA and seventy they did bus polluters. They became law enforcement, going after companies, ruckle houses. EPA would have been all over this in Ohio right now in a very large way. Now, Nixon later thought

ruckles House was a loose cannon. A longer story, but you know, Nixon ended up banning DDT. He didn't want to, but the public demanded it, and his own EPA said he had to. So I think the Biden administration is going to get on the page here in the right ways. But they've lost a communication opportunity to show the empathy of the moment they needed, and so they're operating out of a deficit right now, and they've allowed their opponents,

the GOP, to take some major punches at them. And you know, it's indisputable they didn't move quickly enough there, at least in a symbolic way, right And it is interesting nobody is going to accuse the Republican Party of being interested in environmental protection right or regulation, which are the two things that need to happen now. So it does feel really important that Democrats reclaim this. I agree,

and I think Shared Brown's the man. He's a running for reelection for the Senate in twenty twenty four Ohio is becoming a Republican state. He's got a hold on to a Senate seat. I know sheared Brown quite well. In fact, I know he w we knowed. He's reading my book Silent Spring Revolution. Oh yeah, he really cares

about what's going on there. And so I think if he becomes the voice of the Democrats in Ohio like Mike DeWine was doing for the Republicans, and I think that there can be a bipartisan consensus here on how to regulate these railroad companies that are bringing toxic chemicals through states at very rapid speeds. And they've done budget cuts and got rid of employees on these train companies

that are carrying the toxic chemicals. And there's something always bad happens when you start downsizing jobs better involved lethal chemicals or industrial debris. Yeah, exactly. Thank you so much, Doug Brinkley. We're gonna want to have you back hey anytime, Molly adoreya and I love your podcast and keep it going. Oh you, our dear listeners are very busy, and you don't have time to sort through the hundreds of pieces

of pundentry each week. This is why every week I put together a newsletter of my five favorite articles on politics. If you enjoy the podcast, you will love having this in your inbox every Friday. So sign up at Fast Politics pod dot com and click the tab to join our mailing list. That's Fast politicspod dot com. Mike Damaski is the editor of The New Republic. Welcome to Fast Politics,

my favorite friend, Mike Damaski. Hey, hey, I want to talk to you about this unprecedented time in American history. I would think of you as someone who has like a long memory old ye, do give me a precedent for what the fuck is happening here? Also weekend Curse. Yeah, well, it's fucking crazy. There's not much precedent really. You know,

people point to the eighteen fifties. I guess, but I think I've always said this is worse than the eighteen fifties, because at least in the eighteen fifty they were kind of arguing about the same set of facts. They disagreed about slavery, but neither disputed the essential facts of the slave trade. There was just one side that was against it. In one side thought it was fine, and so on

and so on and so on. Now we're not talking at all about the same set of facts, you know, I mean, you watch MSNBC and CNN one night, and then if we brought somebody here either from like another planet or from a you know, a remotish civilization somewhere, and asked them to watch MSNBC the first night, CNN the second night, and Fox News the third night, they'd say, well, the first two nights were pretty similar, and we're describing a certain world, but the third night was just describing

a completely different place, right right, Yeah, in that sense, we're much farther apart than they were in eighteen fifty nine, in eighteen sixty. Well, that's what I wanted to ask you about, because when we're talking about this idea of like, I mean, you were there, as was I in nineteen ninety seven when Fox News started. It was the same year that MSNBC started and the networks at that time. There were liberals on Fox. You know there are liberals

today on Fox too. Yeah, there was one liberal on Fox. Let's not get carried away, Molly. There was Combs Alan Colmes, right right, and his job was to be Sean Hannity's doormat. You know, we know that, whereas on MSNBC, who was on Laura Ingram was on MSNBC. Wow. Yeah, people forget that MSNBC didn't become the MSNBC we know until well into the Bush years. I always wonder what the chicken or the egg here is, Like, did Fox News create this or did this create Fox News? Yeah? I think

this created Fox News. But let's define this. This was the Rupert Murdoch empire first of all, that started out very small, started out with the New York Post and included New York Magazine, include the Village Voice for a little while. And he didn't try he didn't try to turn the Village Voice right wing. He just wanted to make money off the Village Voice and then he sold it.

So this was spearheaded by Murdoch and then also spearheaded by the end of the fairness doctrine in the Reagan years and the rise of right wing radio, right wing talk radio and Christian talk radio, which people a lot of people thought wasn't going to succeed at all, and of course has. So those things were the first steps in the right wing media. And Fox was just seeing a market opportunity, Fox News seeing a market opportunity and

inserting themselves into it. Right. That is sort of the sense that I was getting is that Murdoch is in many ways just a mercenary, and that while he may be ideologically right wing, she is chasing the dollar ultimately. Yeah, and you know we've learned that. We learned that never more emphatically than we learned it last week. Yes, the dominion soon. Yeah, with that court filing, I mean they openly said to each other, we can't lose market share

to Newsmax. We can't lose market share to Newsmax. We know Trump is peddling a bunch of bullshit, but we can't lose viewers to Newsmax. Let's play this, you know, without exactly endorsing. Let's let's play this with kid gloves. But of course they did go on to exactly endorse. You know, a lot of the hosts completely endorse the big lie, completely gay space to it. And it's not

just if you read through that filing. It's not just Carlson and Ingram and Hannerty, it's other people, notably Bardaromo. I mean, she comes off so poorly. I think I never understood what happened to her. Yeah, how much money does she make a year. That's probably what happened to her, right, Okay, hey got it. I could give you sixteen million reasons why she did or whatever the number is, you know, all right, but it is like very clear when you look at the filing just how much this was a

calculated decision on the part of these Fox anchors. Yeah, and they played it along for weeks and weeks and weeks and you know, so they let people go on their air saying stuff that they knew to be false. Let's stop, take a step back. These are alleged journalists doing alleged journalism, and they let person after person after person go on their air and say false things and say crazy thing things they knew to be to have no basis in fact. That wasn't about you know, whether

the New England Patriots inflated footballs or not. You know, it was about the most important serious matters that democracy. Yeah, democracy, the most important thing we confront as a country. And they let these lies go on for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks, and they still go on, and they now have been caught I think, you know, red handed. But we'll see what happens. I mean, it's you know, it's it's hard to convict rich people of anything in

this country. And I'm not arguing with that, that's certainly true. But the other thing that I think is pretty interesting is that here we are where there's a percentage of the population that really needs to now hear that they were lying, and they will not hear that on Fox News. Oh no, of course not. I still think back to that woman. Oh when was this? Oh it was it

was about the Muller Report. Do you remember that they had that clip of that woman who only watched Fox News and she said, well, I was aware that the Muller Report said anything critical about Donald Trump? Where are

you getting that? Where are you getting that? And it's you know, I mean, I'd love to do a poll sometime of MSNBC and the n end viewers on the one hand versus foxnewers on the other hand, and just ask them what they know about the world, you know, not only about you know, the twenty twenty election, but like, you know, how old is the earth, you know, because it's different universes? Yeah, definitely, well, and it's almost so I think more importantly, there's no way to reconcile these

two things. No, and you know it's just gotten worse and worse and worse. You know, we referred to you referred to my fans, to my years of experience. I mean, I remember when all this started, and yeah, they created a kind of a different reality. And of course they always seized on, you know, some out there left wing professor who said something kind of crazy, and then they made that seem to their viewers as if every liberal believed that and did that and thought that. Now that's

practically all they do. You know, it used to be part of the mix of what they did, but now it's just about all they do. And it works. I Mean, the thing that I'm struck by is the culture wars work well to distract from bad policies. Yeah. One of the things, Molly, that frustrates me more than anything else in political life today is that when people are asked the question by posters, which party do you think is better for the economy, they always say Republicans by anywhere

from seven to fifteen points. And whether it's a Democratic president or a Republican president, whether the economy happens to be good at the moment or bad at the moment,

they always say Republicans. The facts are that if you look over the last several administrations at job creation, growth in media and household income, gross domestic product increase, stock market increase, everything, deficit reduction, handling of the deficit, the numbers with Democratic presidents are like far superior to the numbers with Republican presidents, far far superior. Nobody knows that that's the Democrat's fault, not the Republicans. They should be

talking about it a lot more than they do. So that's number one. Number two. Now here, we have a Democratic president passing, getting infrastructure jobs, jobs on the ground, getting these infrastructure projects done, building chips and microprocessing plants in the United States again, moving those jobs away from China, starting to try to build things more in the United States, make the federal government buy things that are American. Twelve and a half million jobs in his first two years

in office. Some of that's luck coincides with coming back after the pandemic, but still twelve and a half million jobs in two years. Nobody's ever come anywhere near that, And all of these good economic indicators, wages going up, inflation now abating. The Republicans still people still reflectively think

Republicans are the party of the economy. It's a disaster, and it ties to the cultural stuff because they keep that culture stuff in front of people's faces, so they don't notice the economic stuff, right right, No, No, I mean that is we're finding ourselves in this complete kind of world where what happens and what people think are

two different things. Right. Yeah. There are just these perceptions that people have that are so baked in to their ideas about the parties and their ideas about you know, what they hear on the news or the quote unquote news. It's just really hard to dislodge that ship. I mean, how would you theoretically do that if you wanted to, if you could, well, I mean the first thing I would do is that I would I would like if I were the president or the emperor or something. Yeah, yes, God, emperor,

king of whatever it is. The first thing I would do is I would over and over and over again, I would tout those statistics. And I know a lot of people don't pay attention to statistics, but once they've heard them for the ten thousandth time, I do think they begin to make a difference in people's heads. You know, people under the last sixteen years of Democratic presidencies, thirty

four million jobs have been created. Under the last sixteen years of Republican presidencies, one points eight million jobs have been created. Those are the numbers, people, Those are the numbers. They don't lie. These are the numbers. Democrats are better at the economy. Republicans are better at the economy. For rich people, Democrats are better at the economy. So that's the first thing I do. Just have Democrats say that every single day in every venue that they possibly can.

So that starts it. And then I guess the other thing I do is just and I mean this takes a little bit of work and a couple of more wins at the polls. But let's say by twenty twenty four, if Biden wins reelection, and if the Democrats retake the House, and if they manage to hold the Senate, which most people don't think they're going to do because the Senate

map is pretty rough. But if they manage to do all those things, then the first thing that they have to do is get rid of the filibuster and just start passing stuff. You know, raise the minimum wage, do something about overtime pay, expand medicare to include dental and glasses and go after prescription drug. Make insulent free. They can make insulent free. That they've capped it at thirty five dollars, that's nice, but make it free. It's actually

not that expensive. It's a few billion dollars a year to make insulent free. Do these things show the people that you can actually deliver stuff for them. But it requires getting rid of the filibuster, because that way you don't need sixty votes. And if God willing, they have

fifty two Democratic centers or fifty three. If they have fifty three, then mansion and cinema are irrelevant, or even at fifty two because they just need fifty plus the vice president breaking the time, then they can do these things. But you know, they just they really blew an opportunity by not doing anything about that filibuster. Can we talk about George Santos? Yeah, I mean, is there any precedent

for George Santos? There must be, right, a serial fabulous The president for George Santos is George Santos he or George Santos is president? Yeah, right, right right? I mean, as he just told Pierre Morgan, he said, why why Yeah, why should I have told the truth in twenty twenty two? I lied in twenty twenty and I got away with it. Then, Yeah, I don't know, you know, So the question is and now we've got three. So there's that guy Andy Ogles or whatever his name is. Yeah, he also right, Andy

Ogles is also a serial fabulous. Yeah. And then there's the woman Luna, who's not exactly a serial fabulous but lied about her heritage. So now we've got three. In journalism school, you know that constitutes a pattern. I told there would not be math. Well that's just three, Molly. You have to ask why are there are these people?

And why are they all Republicans? Now? Are there democratic liars in the world and resume patterns of You're right there, of course, of course, of course there are college issues. Never of course there are democratic resume patters. But why is it that the only cases we have before us are Republicans. Well, there are probably some valid theories about that. They lie about all kinds of shit. So when you start lying about the world, eventually you're going to start

lying about yourself. I also think that it's interesting that two of these three Santos and Luna are non white, and Republicans are so desperate to show that they're diverse and to show that they have people of color who are conservative that they don't give a crap about what their credentials are. It is interesting to me, Like, you lay down with Trump. Trump is your guy, right, you

know he is a serial fabulous. I mean, you know, maybe he's not a serial fabulous, but basically, you know, I would not go to that person for any trustworthy source of information, or would many of his advisors, friends or relatives. So clearly, like the message here is this is okay. I mean I wonder about like the people in the Republican Party. I often think about this, like the people like a kind of I mean, I don't

want to say new Gangridge. I'm thinking more along the lines of like someone smart, like the guy who wanted to like drown the government in a bathtub. Norquest, Right, I'm thinking about north Quest, Like Norquest went along with Trump because it was working, right. Yeah, But like I wonder if these people ever made the larger calculus that like, while we're doing this, we're completely screwing ourselves, you know, in a million different ways. Yeah, they had to know

I mean, I know Grover a bit. He is a smart guy. He actually did go to Harvard. But no, he's very smart. That's why I brought him up, because he's like very smart, ideologically very conservative, and people like that. You have to have made a sort of Faustian deal that you were just going to do it. Yeah. I think they all just thought, you know, we can get away with this and just hope the roof doesn't cave

in on us. And meanwhile we're getting our judges and you know, man, he's doing you know, he's doing whatever else he's doing with respect to I don't know his moves in Israel they like that, and cutting taxes they love that, obviously. Yeah, they didn't anticipate January sixth. They didn't anticipate an attempted coup. They didn't anticipate that he'd actually want people to kill his vice president. And yet he's the front runner for the nominee. Yeah. I think

he's a front runner for the nominee. Or and if he's not the nominee, I think we're going to have mini Trump. Yeah, meet ball Ron, Thank you, thank you, thank you. I hope you will come back of course anytime. Thanks Molly John Fast, Jesse Cannon. Remember how much Trump pers expected that pledge about not running in another party when they tried to get him to do it in twenty sixteen, and he basically just embarrassed the blood stage.

That was fun. So Rona Romney RNC chair, yet again, has decided that she's going to make all the candidates sign a pledge saying they're going to support whoever wins the nomination. But let me tell you, there's only one candidate she really cares about getting to sign it, and that candidate ain't going to sign it. You know. It reminds me of the old George Bush. Fool me once, shame on you fool me twice, shame on you don't get to fool again. And that is a verbatim quote

from George W. Bush. Don't get to fool me again, except with Ronna. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to hear the best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.