George Conway, Rep. Ro Khanna & Michael Scherer

could guarantee Donald Trump's reelection. But first we have Washington Post contributing columnist, close personal friend, the one the only, George Conway. Welcome back to Fast Politics. George Conway. I'm Molly. Anything happens today, nothing, pretty much nothing. Trump's lawyers, good lawyers, bad lawyers discuss I think Michellis seems like she's relatively smart because she knew to put it into that little fiasco they had outside the courthouse. Takapine, he shouldn't be

allowed anywhere near microphone. I don't know how he's going to try Jean Carroll's case in two or three weeks, because he basically has a domain coherent to say. And I couldn't really get a feel for a new guy who didn't really seem to have a presence of command of the situation. But that may have been because there was so much noise in the very beginning when he

was speaking. But it was sort of a very strange I thought, a very strange press conference with the held where you had the new lead guy, nobody could hear him, and then you had Tacopina trying to assert himself as the alpha male, and then Michelle is basically shutting them both down and saying, thank you very much, let's go. I mean, that was my impression of it. I don't know if it struck you as any different, but it just it was a very very odd and I don't

think they did a very good job helping their client there. Well, why are they even having a press conference? Because Donald Trump is watching TV on the way back to Laguardi at airport and he expects his lawyers to say some crazy stuff that will make him feel better or else. He's going to get on the phone as soon as he gets on the seven to fifty seven and he's going to start yelling at somebody, right, you know, I mean, there's not careful legal analysis no where. Since you are

a lawyer who can do careful legal analysis. Let's just talk for a minute about this case. There are other cases coming down the pike that are probably stronger cases. I don't think this case is a case. I mean, I think people are saying that's it. Oh, that's all I have. Oh it's right, he don't beat this rapid's like. I don't think that's necessarily true. I don't think it's true because first all, he did it, he's gilby the charges. Have we rub the indictment in the statement of facts,

I think they're legally sufficient. I mean, the criticism you can make of the cases, this case should have been bought years ago, right, it should have been brought by the Feds back in twenty twenty, twenty twenty one, and I didn't have the expectations that other people had. For On the other hand, you know, this is this case is you know this case. The next proceeding in this

case is going to be in December. I gather, according to the reporting, and you know, we're going to have so much this will be so far in the rearview mirror by then, it's not going to be We're going to forget about this case for a while. We're going to forget about this case within a couple of weeks, because we'll talk to us about the Gene Carroll trial. Because you have some insight there, well, I don't. I

don't know that I have any particular insight. I mean I did help or find a lawyer at some party, I don't know. I mean, I think this case is I think it's a pass little case. I think it's it's perfectly fine. I think if you're if it's try, he'll probably be convicted. His best chance in this case is to argue that the charges should all be misdemeanors, right, And I don't think he's going to win on that. But he could win on that, but I don't think

he's gonna win cleanly on it. And I don't think he really wants to face a jury of manhattanites in this case. But on the other hand, I mean, you know, the fact of the matter is, it's like we've got some more serious things coming up, which will be the Georgia case as much is very serious. Gene Carroll case is going to be quite a show. And he's dead to right on, dead to rights as as far as

I can tell. On on the Marlague of Marlogue, of documents. Yeah, the Marlago documents case is a real I mean there can be obstruction there. I mean, there are a lot of things that could happen there. Yeah, I mean it's you know, I've been saying for months that it's the shortest distance between and Orange Jumption. So basically, he came in, he said he was not guilty. It took an hour, then they got him out. Do we think there was

a We think there wasn't a mug shot. There wasn't many of the normal things we think of when people getting booked. I you know, I don't know, having never attended a book, and I can't speak to that. But they didn't take a much shot, I gather, and they didn't do fingerprints, because we should be so lucky that we can't find all the trump I mean, it's funny because reading this document, one of the things that I'm struck by is just how many of the stories from

the first season come back. Oh look, I mean it's always the Love Child, right, you know, it's an HBO special. You know, they wait five seasons and you come back and somebody resurfaces from season one, you know, and the Sopranos was somebody who gets released from prison after four seasons away, So you know, I mean, that's that's just what happens. And then if that's life in the Trump land, we haven't seen the evidence. We've just seen what's in

this document, but there's no evidence to see. And in the following said, it's like these documents say what they say, they were false. Right. Jim Trusty was on CNN with Jake Tapper attacking cohen credibility. But cohen credibility isn't really an issue. I mean, it's the issue is did this all happen? Were these checks written? And they were, and

he signed some of them. I don't see how he's not convicted of something, whether it's a misdemeanor or a felony, is going to be There are a couple of interesting issues that how you apply the state law here and what it takes to bump up a misdemeanor to a felony. And I could argue both sides of that. I think the DA has the better of it. Can you give us just a sort of a clue on what it is that changes a misdemeanor to a felony? Yeah, here,

here's what it is. I mean, basically, it's a misdemeanor the falsified books and records in the state of the marketing Okay, corporate books and records. But it can be a felony if you're committing and doing the falsification with the intense to commit fraud or with the intense to commit another crime. So the question is, all right, what's the other crime in order for it to become a

felony and the other crime? And Drag explain at his press conference and the indictment put the indictment less than clear about it. There's potential pro federal Leshing Campaign Act violation and violation of the contribution limits. There is also a state campaign finance law which prohibits the use of

prohibits promoting the candidacy to relate Leans. And then there's also there was also some tax angle that he described where I think it was there was a they believe it was a scheme to falsely report pain the payment story the angle payment says income to Michael Collin even though it wasn't, although they gross them up for it. There's no reason why one of those won't stick, and I think they probably will one one or those three

possibilities will stick. But we'll see. I mean, you know, he could, he could, maybe he'll maybe he'll get convicted and and it'll get sent reverse to a mistomean or on appeal. But I don't see how they don't prove the elements of these events as a misdemeanor at a minimum and probably fold. We see Don Junior is really leaning in on pumping up a lot of information about

the judge's daughter. I mean, does the jude Is there any legal mechanism to protect this judge's daughter from this sort of right wing I mean, some of these people are theoretically dangerous right right. And the defendant obviously can't be subjective restraint because he's the defendant. He didn't get a gag order, which I think is kind of shocking. I think the judge was smart not to do it

on day one. Okay, I think he was smart the great or what he probably did or what it sound like he did, we'll see the transcript, I'm shore, but what he did was he cautioned both sides exercise restraint in their public statements about the case. Yeah, well, I'm sure Trump will do that. He's known for his restraint. Yes, we'll see how that goes. Don Junior's post about the daughter of the judge really that was sick. What was sick?

And in Shane and a jurisdiction I think that the court might have over him, could be that he you know, he's a potential witness. He signed some of those checks right, Well, we don't know which it was he or Eric right, No, it was it was Don Junior signed some of themself, at least want of them. Okay, he may be a potential witness. He might be subject that it's a gag order because of that, although he probably might have a first to have to do the analysis. This is how

these guys play them. That's that's the thing that's maddening about it is and they have no moral vocompunctions. They will they want to threaten and intimidate people. And the notion that he's posting the photograph social and on Twitter of the judge's daughter is really really good and insane. But this is what they do. This is how they act. Yeah. I mean Trump obviously is delighted by this as a fundraising technique. I mean he's been sending fundraising emails out

all day. I don't think he's the life. I think he's horrified. I think he's lost control of the situation, and I think he knows that. I meant, you know, this was this one's the ultimate indignity for him. So far, the indignities are going to get worse for him. I think gets further in, further down the legal process and more charges made against him. He's completely lost control of

the situation. I I The symbolic thing to me that I saw was the core officers were leading him into the hallway outside the courtroom and didn't hold the door open and let the door just kind of close in his face. And I kept thinking watching that trunk having to push the door open for himself for the first time he probably who knows how many years, contrasting that

with the time that he shoved aside. I think it was the Prime Minister of Montenegro, so we could get it in front of a photograph of tomatoes on it, right, yeah, contrast, So anyway, that was sort of the thing. The thing about that was the impression that I left in the image that I will always carry with me watching this show today. No, I think it's the beginning of the

end for what's going to take a while. So what you're saying is kind of what Maggie said all along, which is this idea that in fact, Trump while he is sending out fundraising emails with the fake mug shot, and he is certainly raising money and cashing in. You do truly believe that psychologically she's not doing well with us, No, of course not. There's a problem of all crazy norses, which is and want to be the center of attention.

They want everything to revolve around them, but they're terrified of being humiliated and those two urges and they because like we've seen us a thousand times, because he wants to put himself in the middle of everything and he's but he's too stupid to know how to do it, and he ends up doing it in a way that either gets him into trouble or makes or causes him to make a fool out of I mean, you know, he's like so many different instances, like his press consiences

in COVID, you know, where he pretends to be no everything and makes a complete a jackass out of himself because he's an idiot. That's the conundrum he faces here, Except it's just it's what's at risk for him is not just his reputation and it's the perception that some people have of whether he's intelligent or not, but his liberty is it. And we're going to see that again in each one of these cases where he is charmed

and drawing. So now I'm going to ask you one last question, which is like the annoying question that I ask people when I'm really interested and just want to know for my own dification, how do you think this plays out? I mean, do you think that? And again, I know you can't get to the machinations of like does he get found guilty in which cases? But more just the question is like do you think eventually he's like this is enough, I'm gonna or do you think

he just fights? You know, he's not going away. He will not go away. He cannot helps himself. This is a death match. I can to struggle to the end for him because it's xpencil for him. I don't know. I don't know any way out of it for him. I don't He's not going to throw in the tality, not going to see guilty. He's not going to admit

a mistake or error or a crime. He's just going to continue to fight back in the ways that he knows how to fight back, which he is engaging in attacks on the system and the people who are acting actors in the justice system, and attacking the rule of law, and in fighting pencil violence. What he's going to do because he doesn't really have a playbook that works in this situation, because he doesn't know the thoughts and he knows they're the laws. I want to ask you one

last question. Does Trump get the nomination? Yes? Is there any Marco Nicki Haley, George Conway. Always a delight, Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Congressman Rocana represents California's seventeenth district. Welcome back to Fast Politics. Congressman Rocanna, Thank you, Molly. Always a pleasure to be on. I always want to talk to you because I think you're fascinating, but I really want to talk to you when the bank runs started.

That is your district, Silicon Valley, home of uh, you know, great innovation and some other stuff. Talk to me about where we are now with that. I'm glad the administration made the decision to protect all of the depositors. It would have been statastrophic for regional banks if they hadn't done that. I was pushing Seconty yelling, as you may remember, on Face the Nation Sunday morning, they made the decision

to finally protect the depositors by Sunday evening. If not, you would have had everyone rushing their money in four banks in this country JP Morgan Chase, Well, it's far agoing Bank of America. And in the past ten years there have been seventy three bank failures that where the FDIC has been involved. In seventy two of those cases, depositors have had all their money. So this is consistent with what we've done over the left ten years. Now.

I think what we need to do is make sure that we are taking care of the unninshort accounts and charging a fee for them. Right now, we have about ten trillion dollars in money that is, in short, eight trillion dollars in money that is uninshort in the banking system. I like those unshort account holders to uninsured drivers. They're basically driving with no insurance and all of us bear

the risk. I'm working with Republican on a bill to have a mandatory fee on those accounts in mandatory insurance. I want to get back to this for a second, because I think this is important here. I mean, these accounts are uninsured after two hundred and fifty correct, This was the way that it was set up. I mean, this wasn't like a personal choice. People have their money in those banks. They know that the money is only insured up to two hundred and fifty thousand, and that

it was uninsured beyond that. But you know, if you're a startup or small business and you've got a couple million bucks in that account that you're music for payroll. People didn't just they didn't expect the bank run. And what ends up happening is when these banks end up failing, the FDIC Lending Deposit Fund comes in and guarantees depositors, and that's funded by bank premiums. And what the bank premiums end up going up. But ultimately the users of banks,

all of us, pay that cost. And what I'm suggesting is that if you have an account over two hundred and fifty thousand, you should be required to pay some mandatory bank in shortance fee so that if the bank by some chance goes under, there's a fun to cover the deposit. Right, No, no, exactly, Now, I want to ask you that weekend, Thursday we learned about Silicon Valley Bank. I mean that weekend, did you get so many anxious phone calls? I did? I mean I probably had one

hundred texts by Friday afternoon. I sent out an email to people in the valley and I'd take four pm on Friday, and we had six hundred people by seven thirty join a webinar on one email. And it was probably the only person of government communicating with all of these tech entrepreneurs, bcs of folks out in the valley

trying to appeal to come. But what I realized that Paul, was, you know, money now is moving at the speed of Twitter or its folks are on social media, and we've got to have government moved fast in a modern economy. Right was this White House? Did you feel like they were open to your suggestions and the suggestions of your colleagues. I do. I thought Steve Chetty in particular, was open. I told Treasury with the respect that, well, Janet Gellen is a far smarter economist than I will ever be.

I had to gently contradict her on face the nation when I was asked to respond, and the reason is she was being a bit more hesitant, and I think there was an idea with the FDI s that they should give fifty percent of the deposits back on Monday morning, and that as a matter of economic theory may have been fine, but as a practical matter of what we needed was decisive leader ship to say that the depositors deposits will be protected, to bring calm, make sure there

wasn't a regional run of the bank. And I give the administration credit that they got there by Sunday evening before the markets opened, and so they made the decision in time. Now I understand there was a hesitation. No one wants to be seen out as bailing out the banks. I don't believe this was a bailout because the executives and shareholders will go to zero. But you remember what Obama didn't go after the bank executives. That was a real problem, and so I'm sure that that was weighing

on the White House's mind. Appropriately, as I said to a number of people at the White House, no one has a greater stake in the success of the American economy and President Biden, and if we had not acted that it would have been potentially catastrophic for the American economy. Yeah, and likely for democracy too, or possibly because a lot is riding on the Biden reelection. I want to ask you, there have been a lot a chatter that you were going to make an announcement, and in the end you

endorsed Representative Barbara Lee. Why did you do that? Of course, I love serving in the House of Representatives for two reasons. I believe representing Silicon Valley is one of the most consequential places, for better or worse, in the world to represent, and that was brought home to me in a few weeks before my announcement with all of the Silicon Valley

bank crisis. So I get a lot of the interesting, exciting people of this next generation or in the House, Maxwell Frost and Delia Ramis and Summer Lee and just so much energy, and I feel like I can make a contribution in the House and bold progressive innovative policy. In terms of Barbara Lee, I've admired her in my whole adult life, as she's a strong anti war voice

of a person already. That's why I endorsed her. So Barbara Lee is most famous for having been the one person to stand up on the Iraq war, and I'm a big fan of hers. Two, I'm going to push back here. She's seventy six, but at young seventy six, I'm not saying that in a There are some people who age, and there are other people like Niati Pelosi or Barbara Lee who have more energy than members ychiagrists

my age. And she's you know, I remember when I a few years ago going with Barbara down to see President Carter, and you know, she rented a car from the Atlanta airport. We went down a plane Georgia and she drove the whole way drove back. I mean, she's she's a silver up and about doing exciting things. If I didn't think she had the energy or the bashion for it, I wouldn't have endorsed her. So now I want to talk to you about regulation because this is something near and dear to my heart. We uh so

we had this, you know again, these regional banks. We're going to go back to the bank run for a minute, but I'm going to take this somewhere else. To regional banks had less regulation than the larger banks. Part of what we're living through now is we're living through a lot of the Trump deregulation, and that's why we're having all these train derailments, and that's why we're having all

these things that could have been avoidable. Talk to me where you are about the bank regulations, the train regulations. And then I'm Benna asking something else about that Silicon Valley Bank was lobbying me and many people to have the deregulation in two eighteen, saying, Row, you don't understand it. It's an entrepreneurial economy. We need latitude. We can't have the same regulations as the people in New York. They

don't understand the ballet culture. And I'm very proud that I voted again to what they were recommending about it, uphold dot Frank and I wish everyone had done that. A lot of Democrats did, but a few didn't, and Trump ultimately signed it. Had that legislation been into effect, I think this one never occurred. I mean there would

have been stress and liquidity tests. Now some people are saying that the liquidity and stress tests wouldn't have accounted for rapidly rising interest rates, that that's a problem with the test if they didn't. But more than what the test is that this would it would have been a signal to the FED and regulators that you need to monitor and enforce regulations against mid size large banks. Instead, by passing the deregulation, we set a sake sent to

signal leave these banks alone. And this was the consequence. You represent Silicon Valley. We are in this moment where AI is EXE is about to sort of explode onto the scene in a big way. Congress has had some trouble regulating technology that I feel like that's the understatement of the year. Talk to me about what you can do, what you think you can do, what you think needs to be done. Whereas its afford to understand what AI is, which is basically looking at large patterns of data, large

patterns of language and finding patterns there. But the one thing it can't do is to see if those patterns are actually true they correspond with the external world, or if they correspond with a person's own constitution or aspirations, and so it doesn't replace judgment or human thinking. The challenge is by looking for these patterns, I mean, there's

some advantages to it. We want to use these patterns to find a rare cancer, to figure out how to map the human genomes so that we could have cures to figure out how you target a military base without having collateral damage with civilians. But we also have to be careful that there are dangers. If you have large patterns and the patterns end up having falsehoods in them and you don't have human verification or a check, then

you're going to spew more misinformation. What if you have a bias program that spots these patents, it starts making decisions, they can have it without a safety check. And so what we need is a safety check, and what we need is a check on human judgment to avoid the negatives of AI. So what does that mean. It means we need regulations that say, if you have a complex AI system, you need to have human judgment. Let me

give you an example. If we're going to use AI in our defense department, I don't trust a machine to authorize the strike. I think in general or someone has to look at that. If we're going to have AI do Wikipedia entries, we need to have human editors. Still, right, you know we need a human check, we need a safety check. But you know, I mean think about AI this like let's say you ask chat GPT, how can

I be happy? What chat GPT will do is it'll go and look at every language model, with your demographics, with your geography, with your characteristics as a journalist, and come up with a more paragraph answer on how you can be happy based on when it detected in the language. In that circumstance, I don't think anyone in this country would say, Okay, that's really how I could be happy.

I mean if it was that simple, because it's not corresponding to really adepth of understanding of who you are, what your life is, what your goals are, what your vulnerabilities are. So it's important to neither exaggerate nor minimize what AI is. It's transformative in that it allows us to use large patterns and to figure that out quickly.

So we literally can now figure out someone's human genome for one hundred bucks, whereas what Bill Clinton was doing it it costs three billion bucks to figure out person's at DNAC. That's extraordinary. But we're not going to be replacing judgment, empathy, thinking, or an understanding of truths, so we still need our philosophy majors. I get that, but let's just talk about the sort of broader tech regulation.

For a minute, Elon bought Twitter. Twitter still continues to really be a sort of high for journalists and politicians. There's no regulation, right, He's not forced to keep people verified. The White House said they wouldn't pay for verification. He stripped the New York Times. I mean, this is just an example, but I want to like get to what it's larger implications for real world legislation. There are no rules in Twitter or in the Internet at large. I mean,

he can do whatever he wants. Well, he's disciplined by the market and by human demand. I mean, if he'd really started doing just things that were totally outrageous, then people would presumably migrate off. The problem is whatever they were advertising Massiban or something. I mean, it was so boring, right right, No, No, it's not great. It's hard to use. But I mean I'm just thinking about like the larger implications of like there certainly seem like there are regulatory

things that need to happen when it comes to technology. Absolutely, the first thing that needs to happen is protecting people's own data and people owning their own data. But in a pat from like Twitter, I think one of the things that these have it is more competition, so more platforms can come so that they're basic anti trust. And then, as I told Elon directly, I said, why do you want to be the person calling the balls and strikes? Why do you want to be the person who's gonna,

you know, call the automatic strike. You know these days where where the baseball the pitchers count runs out. Then and you're the one saying, Okay, this is not verified, this is verified. This is a tweet that has a problem. You're you're an innovator, Go focus on getting us to Mars, or go focus at starlink or SpaceX. But you know, if you're gonna own Twitter, set up an independent board that's going to make these these balls and strikes so

you're not involved in them up. And Jeff Beyz also, like it or not, you know, did that with the Washington Post. When I write articles of the Washington Post criticizes me, I'm not sitting there thinking that Jeff Bezos is criticizing me and people. You know, you can have some complex theory of how it's corporate on, but as a basic matter, there's an independent between the corporate ownership

and the editorial decision making. And I think social media platforms would be well served with that, whether that's Zuckerberg or Elon Musk, to just have some role of separation between those who do the content and those who are the capital owners. Right. So, now we have just had another mass shooting. The Republicans. I'm sure you saw this thing with Jamal Bowman and Thomas Massey, Thomas Massey arm all the teachers. Republicans seem to be operating a bad

faith about the guns. Do you see any light on the horizon here? I mean when it's Andy Hookkapen and we didn't do anything after six year olds were murdered, I said, what is the capacity of this country to react? I mean, what would it take? I mean within and we've seen to me that was sort of emblematic, one of the most horrific things that could happen, and the country did nothing. And now it just keeps repeat eating in some form. I mean, nine year olds shot to

death and we're not responding. I guess the question for me is just this next generation, the young folks. They are growing up with this anxiety and this real need to do something, and it's going to take their generation getting involved and continuing to hold us to account. But it's been a frustration of mine. Seven years in Congress. The only thing we did was Chris Murphy's law, the bipartisan one, and that's just one step. I mean, we still have so much more to do, but it's very polarizing.

I don't know, and I'm you know, I have someone who works across the island a lot of things. This is just one area where the parties are totally divided. Yeah, I mean it's such a complete nightmare. Rocana, Thank you so much. I hope you will come back. I always enjoy it. Thank you. Michael Shearer is a national political reporter at The Washington Post. Welcome too Fast Politics. Michael, Hey,

how are you? You know you've written two articles that have captured my anxiety, that have spun me into a whole new level of anxiety. And this whole problem starts with a man called Mark Penn. Talk to us about no labels. So no labels to the group that's been around for more than a decade point and mostly what

they've been is like a centrist think tank. They helped set up something called the Problem Solvers Cocress of the House, which is like Republicans and Democrats who want to get together and find a person solution that close to Joe mansion, and then they later brouched you out into this network of packs and helping politicians get elected. But they had started the last year something entirely new and different, and

that is a project that will cost it. They estimate seventy million dollars to get on all fifty state ballots so that if they want to next year, they can run a third party candidate in the presidential election and possibly in the down ballot race right Orhouse, on the theory that the American people don't want to see a matchup between the two people who will be put forward by the major party candidates. They've been sort of operating on the assumption that Joe Biden and Donald Trump will

be the nominees. Even though they won't say explicitly that Biden is an unacceptable nominee, they're kind of inferring that because they think he's too liberal. Right. The whole idea is they want less liberal right, or at least if they were to keep going on their bullshit, that would be it. Right. Yeah, On the assumption that Biden does not represent the broad rational, common sense middle ground of American politics and has been steered to the left by

the crazy far left activists. Yeah, Okay, it's not true,

but yes, continue. So they have put together this group of mostly former you know name brandish politicians Joe Lieberman of the two thousand Democratic ticket fame, who is now an independent, pet McCrory, the former governor and Senate ganging Republican side, and North Carolina Larry Hogan, who considered a presidential run himself, former governor of Maryland's Republican And they're floating this idea that the unthinkable as possible if only,

you know, Americans try and think outside the two party bucks. And they call it an insurance policy, and they say it will not be triggered until they have more polling and possibly named candidates sometime early next year. They're going to have a convention in April in Texas where these candidates may win the nomination of No Labels, which is not actually a political party, which is legally interesting, and

then they may run. And they say they're not going to do it, if they're going to just be spoilers, they're not trying to do the Ralph later get five percent thing that happened in two thousand. They're going to run only if they can win, and they've done a bunch of polling so far. The polling again that's so far does not clearly show that they have a path. That does show what we kind of all know, which is that, you know, the American people are pretty unhappy

in the direction of the country. The American people are economically anxious. I don't trust anything that comes out of no levels. But let's talk about Mark Penn and Nancy explain to us a little bit, our listeners, what the history of Mark Penn is. So, Mark Penn came up

in the Clinton years. He was a poster political consultant for from President Clinton, and then when Hillary Clinton ran for president in two thousand and eight, he was the main consultant to Hillary Clinton, and he made a number of big bets about how and why she would win the primary against Barack Obama that did not prove to be correct, and after that his relationship to Democratic Party became more and more rocky. Yeah. So would you say that Mark Penn was mad that he sort of had

a falling out with Hillary Clinton? Yeah. I think it was broader than just Hillary Clinton. I think it was like there was a falling out within that campaign. Losing campaign stended resolve in acrimony, but so that happened, but there was a broader falling out, and Penn started talking in the years after that about opening for a third party bid. He ended up working for Microsoft for a while. His wife, Nancy Jacobson, who is the founder and CEO

of No Labels, sort of took the ball. And initially this wasn't a third party effort, right, This was just a sort of like, can we get a common sense middle ground to American politics and empower the sort of non wacky part of the electorate, right, And then that built over time. Now Nancy's team says Mark Penn has absolutely no involvement with No Labels, but we know that's not true. It is also true that Mark Penn has been echoing the same things publicly that No Labels is saying. Now.

He's written about it in columns in The Hill and spoken about it publicly. It's also true that Harris as, the polling firm that No Labels uses, is owned by a large public company called Stagwell that Mark Penn now runs. There are relationships here although No Labels people will push back very hard at the idea that, you know, Nancy Jacobson couldn't be doing this on her own and that she would need her husband's help to come up with

these ideas. Now, there have been times in the past where it's been reported that Penn has helped sort of cabits about tweets that No Labels has put out and stuff like that. I want to ask you about No Labels as connection to Targeted Victory. Targeted Victory is owned by Stagwell, the same company that owned har Sacks The Polster. They also happen to own SKADK, which is the democratic firm that Anita Done and a bunch of buying advisors

worked for. In the past. No Labels has used Targeted Victory, which has like digital yeah, I mean it also has some very sketchy people who work for it. Target Victory. No Target Victory, interestingly, is going to be basically the Tim Scott campaign very surely, I think, I mean Jim Scott is on his way towards announcing who can always pull back, but the whole Like if you I was at Nile with Tim Scott a few weeks ago, and the whole crew traveling with them, our Targeted Victory people.

They're definitely signed up for a presidential race of their I don't know if Targeted Victory is still working directly with No Labels, although we know that in the Passionate ame a vendor. Now I want to ask you about this situation. So we have this third party group. They have clearly some kind of relationship with Joe Mansion. We talk to us about that. I met with him last Thursday and I said, well, so it's Joe Mansion all of then, And the answer was, what Joe Mansion is

a friend of this effort of No Labels. We worked with them for a long time. It's been reported the Joe Mansion shows that the Labels Mansion also has a sort of stated desire to punish the far right and the far left and elevate the center. So they have similar ideological approaching, maybe right, I mean that's what they say their approaches. I would like not give them the benefit of the doubt. I know you need to be

a stray reporter, but I can have my opinion. But Manson did get on the phone with me on Saturday, and it said very clearly, not only that he thought that twenty twenty four project by No Labels and this insurance policy was a great idea for the country and for democracy as a way of sort of punishing the extremes, but also that he would not rule in or rule out appearing on the ticket himself. He's probably not going

to run percent it again. He could. He's not sort of making the moves you would make if he was going to run percent again. It's a very tough state for him to win again. He said, it'll make a decision by the end of the year. And he also said by the end of the year he'll make a decision about whether to run for something else, like maybe president. I don't know who that ticket is for, but I know who it can hurt. So let me ask you.

There's another thing happening when No Labels is they're working really hard to get on the ballot in a state where one of their favorite politicians is running for reelection. Talk to us about that. Trying to get on all fifty ballot, all fifty states. But one of the early ones they did do was Arizona. They collected the signatures they needed, they delivered the signatures to the Democratic Secretary of State Rfantes. He said, you got it, these are

the right signatures. You're gonna be able to be on the ballot. And last week the Arizona Democratic Party filed suit saying that the Secretary of State aired and accepting those signatures. Now, the concern among Democrats is twofold one. Arizona is a swing state in the presidential race, so if say Joe Mansion's on the ticket, it could hurt Biden Trump or Republican acts can actually win the electoral

votes in mid state. But also Christian Cinema, the formerly Democratic senator who's now an independent, has not said whether she's going to run for reelection again, and it's possible we have a three way race in that state. And now if we have a three way race, presumably Cinema would have a place to a way to appear on the ballot pretty easily by getting no labels to give her their ballot one. Do Democrats have a case? So

the case they may I'm not a lawyer. I don't know the answer to that, but I can explain what

the case is. The case they make is that you need to collect a very large amount of signatures, and so no labels collected something like forty thousand sigatures, and the state statute says when the signatures are turned on in they have to come with affidavits from electors that this party, this new party is going to use and basically who the party is, like the board of directors of the party, and the affidavits have to say that

the signatures are right and proper and real. The affidavits were submitted, but the signature on the affid davids came before all the signatures were collected. Oh so that's kind of scatch. That's the case they're making that it was sort of a process error here, and that since the electors could not have sworn to the validity of the signatures since they were all collected, the affidavits aren't true,

they're false. And if the affidavits are false, then the law has not been followed and this party cannot be on the ballot. Do you think it'll work, like, I honestly don't know. There's a lot of ways I could hypothetically say, a judge could try and splice that. The other fact is that the signatures have been checked partially and they're okay. It's not like the signatures are bad. It's this process error, so I don't know the answer

of how it goes. I think the way to look about lawsuits, though, is that this is sort of the opening bell of a much broader war that is getting started now, in which the Democrats are going to come after no labels and every return. I also don't rule out I know the Republican Party and some of its consultants have been looking at this too right now. The sense I get from talking to people over there is

then they don't see this as believe. They think it's probably hurts Democrats more than Republicans, at least where they've looked, but they have not ruled out the possibility that put their party ballot could hurt them. So could you could foresee in the coming months, maybe in a different state, depending on who science the signature ballots and what the dynamics of the state are, the Republicans will push back

against this. But that said, theles is very well funded, and signature gathering is basically a math equay evolving money on one end and signature is coming out the other end. You just get enough people to collect the signature, he'll eventually get their signatures these sort of challenges meaning slow things down, But I doubt they can disrupt the whole project. Why are they so well funded? Who gives money to

No Labels? Wouldn't we all like to know? Well, we know a little bit Republican Nelson valves the signature gathering effort of No Labels is being funded through a nonprofit group that does not disclose its donors ergo dark money. Yeah, there are other political operations of No Labels, the stuff which I referenced before, that where they fund candidates they like that have been involved donations from named donors, and a number of those donors you know those donors include

long time Republican donors. I mean, I think that clearly No Labels appeals to a type of Republicans Wall Street, you know, low regulation, modern tax cuts for billionaires, but also not social warrior kind of like chamber of commerce, seeing type well healed person. And so presumably the donors to this effort are the same as the donors to what has been disclosed to those packs, but we don't know.

When I asked Nancy Jacobson why she's not disclosing the donors, she said she wants to shield them from the hate that comes. Oh Jesus Christ, what a fucking baby. If re electing Donald Trump is wrong, she doesn't want to be right. So dark money donors, but certainly a fair number of Republicans that we know now some Palets, etc. Have given in the past, and also everyone's favorite union buster Starbucks chief right in twenty eighteen. Maybe he didn't.

I don't know that. I mean, I think he's an interesting one to bring up, Howard Charles because he came into like the theory of the case is that this is realistic and doable. It can be done right. You can get thirty six thirty eight percent of the country to vote for somebody who's not a Democrat or Republican. If you remember four years ago around this time, Howard Schultz was like on a book tour of sorts, yeah,

trying to drop up support. And after he did a sixty minutes special and the whole premise of it was, look, forty percent of America identifies as independent, so we just have to go tell them they've got a candidate. Now it will win. And what he found out very quickly is telling a pritical scientists have done and posters have

gone for a long time. But when you call yourself independent doesn't mean you're like almost all of those people who call themselves independent behave almost identically two Democrats or Republicans, and the pure independent portion of the electorate that's somewhere between I don't know, five and ten percent, depending on who you talk to and how you ask the question. Yeah, really quite disturbing and also worrying. I appreciate you coming on. I hope they'll come back. Yeah, I looked to thank

you for having Jesse Jannon Molly jung Fast. There's fuckery about in Florida. Who would have thunk that state could deliver it. Two very authoritarian things happened in two very authoritarian goop state houses, and while they don't involve Donald Trump,

they are still extremely relevant. One of them was there was a protest of the states very Florida's extremely draconian anti choice laws, and during that protest, Nicky Freed, who was the agg chair and recently ran for governor, was arrested, arrested for peacefully protesting, which technically we're not supposed to be arrested for peacefully protesting. And then in the state of Tennessee, which has had a lot of protests because

they just recently had a school shooting. The Republicans took steps to expel these three democratic lawmakers because of using the protests as the excuse. These are both ways in which small ways in which these Republican leaning authoritarian, curious state government is trying to hurt the few Democrats in legislature in these states. So they are are many moments of fakery. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics.

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