Gina Raimondo, Rep. Pramila Jayapal & Ian Dunt

President Biden. Then we'll talk to United States Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo, who will talk to us about how the administration is easing inflation and bringing manufacturing back to the United States. First, we have I newspaper columnist and host of the Origin Story podcast and Oh God What Now, as well as author of How Westminster Works and Why it doesn't, The One the Only Ian dunt Welcome back to Fast Politics and done very much, Thank you very much.

Havn't our special European corresponding. We don't pay you. You are a correspondent and I've just been instantly promoted from British to all of Europe. Yes, because we want to ask you about it since nothing happens in your little island. But that's not true. You have a new prime minister. We do how's it going things happen here? It's just that nothing good ever happens here. That's that's the crucial distinction.

Tell us how it's going. Well, it's okay. I mean, he's he's not completely mad, he's not sort of violent with his lies, and therefore he is of course far superior to the last two arguably three prime ministers that we've had. He is, however, I mean, really quite dreary and inept and unimaginative and misleading. It has to be said, he's misleading within the normal realms of political deception. But nevertheless, that is what he is, explained to us why you're

thinking of when you talk about miss leading. So, for instance, we are currently being absolutely ruined by strikes. I mean, the extent of the industrial action that's taking place here is really just a sort of couple of steps away from a general strike. I mean, today alone, I can tell you that, you know, the postal services on strike, the nurses are on strike, the ambulance drivers are on strike.

The Border Force Agency is going to be on strike over Christmas, meaning that the airports are pretty much ground to a stand still, and the railways are pretty much constantly on strike. I mean, they're not exactly striking today, but they were striking earlier this week, and they'll be striking again later on in the week. But what about the baggage handlers in Heathrow Because I experienced firsthand that summer, and I have questions will for some insane reason, they've

decided not to strike. They're like the only people that are still working this week. Basically, literally, the country just does not work. I mean, that is the point that we're at right now, is that nothing actually works. We've degraded ourselves sort of back to pretty much where we were in the nineteen seventies, the sick man of Europe, you know, the country that just cannot function Rittie soon next response to this is to basically say, well, look,

I mean, there's there's no negotiating with these people. We can't afford to pay them any more money or else there'll be more inflation. So I'm just going to pass a bunch of laws that make it harder people to strike. Now, that's not an out and outlie, but what it is is profoundly deceptive because the real question that he has to answer is, you know, if you're going to pay people more. You need to worry about inflation, sure, and

the way to do that is taxation. To reduce demand through taxation, which gives you the money simultaneously to pay more to public sector workers who we need and who frankly are being impoverished to an intolerable degree by the extent of existing inflation. And that's why they're striking, Which is exactly why they're striking. So I mean those kind of serious political conversations where you actually, you know, honest with people about the kind of trade offs that are required.

That's not the kind of thing he's prepared to go into. It. Just wants to talk tough, look tough, tell them we're going to get the army out and they can save your grandmother if she has a stroke, so don't worry about it, and will pass some legislation against the strike. So he's deceptive. He's just not you know, as habitual a liar as Boris Johnson or his trust. So you have all these people on strike, he doesn't want to

negotiate with them for higher wages. Their view on higher wages is essentially that it will lead to a spiral towards inflation, towards ever greater inflation, which which in the itself, is not an unreasonable argument. The thing is that you can, you know, you can take several actions that will dampen inflation on the basis of paying public sector workers more. You can, for instance, borrow the money and then make sure that you raise the interest rates in order to

dampen demand that way. Or you can tax more and reduce them on that way and use that money to pay our public sector workers more. So there are avenues to take, but we're still in the business of sort of this sort of crazed almost pathological machismo to the manner in which we conduct politics, and pretending everything is simple, pretending you can just batter your way through a sort of political obstacles, and that's really ended us where we

are now. That's a very strange thing to say about Richie Sunac, who himself looks sort of looks like like the head boy in school who's suddenly been allowed to become prime minister for the day, so very very eager and very excited and thinks he's acting out the part

of what a prime minister would look at. And he spent his entire time talking about just how tough he is, how weak all of his opponents are, and then you look at him and think, well, you're really very thin and very short, and I'm not entirely sure that you would win in a fight yourself. And that, in the end is the sort of small man syndrome that we've

ended up in politically in the country. And ultimately your inflation in the UK is much much worse than in the US, right, that's right, it's worse than almost anywhere. There's a few countries have gotta worse than us, but it's it's it's hitting like Venezuela, yes, exactly. Well, the other you know, great countries that we want to emulate

and replicate in any way that we can. And that's partly because you know, we got hit by the same things that everyone else got hit by, you know, put in the war in Ukraine, the impact on energy prices, the sort of crazed spasms and global trading patterns because of COVID. However, we also decided to add to that by virtue of Brexit and make the situation as pernicious

and damaging as it could possibly be. One of the things that Brexit did was it put up trading obstacles in the forms of customs, taxation, regulatory checks with our

largest trading partner. The Brexitters like to pretend that Europe is like some kind of strange alien entity with which we can never negotiate, But it is in fact, this massive, massive consumer market, larger than any other on Earth, right there on our doorstep, and all of our trade naturally goes there, except that all of it now costs more to send. That is absolutely devastated small and medium sized businesses.

It's made everything more expensive and it's led to labor shortages as Europeans go home and think, where you know what, I don't need to do. I don't need to put up with this if you're going to treat me this way, And that in itself then needs to ever greater sort of prices. So our inflation is partly the result of the international sort of impact and partly the result of the bed that we made ourselves. Right, Yeah, that's what it seems like to me. And there's no world so

here you are. You're in Europe. It's like America leaving NAFTA. And I mean, I do think the sit right, I mean, it's it's it's ridiculous. But it also is like this situation where you have all these pressures, domestic pressures, you have this large anti global lism. I don't even want to say the word globalism because it's been so corrupted by the all right, but like you have this anti sort of globalism and the and the solution to it is to cut yourself off because in the hopes that

it might help manufacturing at home. But it's not right, Oh, it doesn't help, manu fact I mean the manufacturing. You know, if you if you look at what we do with cars, what we do with airplanes, those parts are going all over Europe, you know, they go on a just in time basis from Germany and France to the UK A and off. You just cut yourself off from from the manufacturing system. Really, But they didn't even have that kind

of sophisticated an appraisal, and they called for Brexit. Their real argument for Brexit was we want to get rid of immigrants. That was the real argument, the central argument, that's why they did it. And their secondary one was this thing that I think hits countries when they're feeling insecure, which is just this sort of this notion of our weakness. Our inability to have everything we want must be due

to internal enemies. You know, these weak liberals, metropolitan cosmopolitan liberals, you know who were They're degrading the nation, allowing all the immigrants in, taking away from you know, the great sort of imperial Britain, that sort of sense of of just insecurity and a search for enemies and and a sense that if you just will for something hard enough,

you can make it come true. And that kind of that kind of mentality is still even under Hi Sona it was far more sensible and saying basically than its particiss It's still there, this kind of fantasy land, nasty minded politics. And on that basis, that's the reason that

Britain is failing you. That's the reason when you look outside the window, that the country simply doesn't work because it is being run by people who aren't properly prepared to address complicated problems and come up with viable solutions, but are instead engaged in this really grotty game of fantasy land politics. What happens? Now? Do do you have any good news for us about the UK? Yeah? With the good newsic now you know what I do? I do? I think that this year in Britain was the year

that rationality returned to a certain extent. It didn't return in the political class, but it has returned among the public. Actually, you know what, it's sort of happening in the U s too, So explain, well, are you guys seen sort of far more advanced And to be honest, by looking at what was happening with your elections this year, it seemed like a similar process was taking place. A people people love letting the public off the hook. You know. It was that the public can't be wrong, it's just

the policy. But the public are wrong all the time, very very frequently and quite deeply so. And they were over Brexit and over the response to Brexit, which is just can you please pretend that everything is simple now?

I think that something changed when we got hit in the aftermath of COVID and Ukraine and the Brexit impacts, which is suddenly political conversation went from this stuff about culture and identity and tribes and just returned to the very very elementary question of how much money do you have in your pocket? And is it less money than you used to have? And people's answer to that question is yes, I can afford less things. I'm actually quite

property shrinken here. Energy prices are going through the roof, Inflation is very very high. Public services are terrible when the government doesn't seem to know what it's doing. And the rationality, the instinctive rationality of self interested economic assessments, has had quite a polverizing effect on the popularity of the Conservatives. I mean, you look at them now. They've been twenty points behind in the polls for months now, and it's only been a year since they were riding

high in the polls. People were saying, you label will never get empowered, the Conservatives will never be thrown out. It looked like they were undefeatable. Was suddenly everything has switched over. The lies are shown up for the lies that they are, and they are talked about by the

public as the lies that they are. And it feels even though the political system hasn't changed, the government hasn't changed, it feels like the public debate has returned to a place that values reason and empiricism over the delusions of sort of populoust egomaniacs. And that's because of the royal family.

Just kidding, I'm going to go to jail. All conversations that you and I have are basically just you waiting to make me talk about which, as you know, I know almost nothing about, but it's the only real topic. But basically, Andrew is never going to go to jail, right, I probably aren't. I I don't imagine that he will. That seems quite unlikely to me. I think he will continue to live a life of sort of shame face east hypocrisy and tucked away like a naughty secret under

a family dining table when you live with that. I mean, I don't know. I would like to see him go to jail, but it seems like none of those people are ever going to go to jail. That, I mean, it's just so unfair that Epstein people talk to me about sort of greater Europe. What is happening in greater Europe, which you guys are no longer a part of. Yes, Well, indeed,

it's a mixed picture. Really. There's elements that have been quite shameful, I think, and that require a sort of real moment of recognition from I think especially Germany over the Ukraine War, and Germany, for its own very specific reasons, has always had this attitude of like, look, you've got to deal with Russia. You have to talk with Russia. You you have to you have to try and make

this relationship work. They sort of defined themselves in opposition to the Code war mentality that you would have had in the US or the UK, and I think really this year is when that properly collapsed. You could argue similarly for for France, which is a bit more subtle in the manner in which it's sort of dealt with things with Russia. However, when the moment came, Europe behaved firmly, and it behaved quickly, like Germany has been sending the

equipment that is needed for Ukraine. There has been an acceptance of trying to bring Ukraine slowly, admittedly, but into the EU. There has to be a slow process. They have no way of doing things quickly, but they're doing it with as much conviction as they can. And I think to look at the practical consequences of what are

going on in Europe is quite complicated and not altogether positive. However, when you look at what Ukraine wants, which is membership of the European Union, there is an emotional reminder there of what Europe is of where it came from, of you know that from the ashes of the Second World War, of you know, countries like France and Germany looking at each other and going, look, we've done this twice now, and if we do this a third time, there's not

going to be a world left. And so we will build something when nations cooperate rather than try to conka one another, and we will cooperate on the basis of our economy as well as our politics. That dream, which is a dream of security and pragmatism and Western values, has sort of been rekindled, like the emotional aspect of Europe has been rekindled by Ukraine, even while materially and politically it served to complicate things. So end of History

part two, yeah, and end of History. I don't know whether it feels the same there, but but here, you know, spending the year just looking at what's going on in Ukraine, looking at what the women are doing in Iran, there's a reminder there of what the West stands for individual freedom and democracy and reason in the pursuit of politics. And given that both your country and mine have been acting like the most glittering sort of wet panted fools

for the last sort of six to eight years. There's a reminder of what it is that we're supposed to stand for in the other countries around the world, to emulate the people who are oppressed. I think, yes, well, I quite like individual freedom for myself as well, that we might think maybe we have a responsibility to not act like sort of national clown cars and start to conduct ourselves with a kind of seriousness that the historic

moment deserves. Now I feel like you're being earnest and it's very moving, and so I want I almost want to cut you off now before you say something funny again, because the earnestness I have, like I'm having like a West Wing moment with you here. Let's let's not get carried away unity ticket baby. But yeah, no, so interesting. Can you talk to us a little bit about the Germany situation, the arrest of the all right, the whatever

that was? No, this is fascinating. I mean, that's probably like the most shocking news that I've seen in weeks. What's interesting to note about what's going on in Germany is is the manner in which it operates in the same way in each country, but with sort of national differences right. So so the far right groups that are operating in Germany are talking mostly it's sort of vocus right content. Now that that is actually people might associate

that with, you know, World War two, with Nazism. It's not that it's the sort of pre Nazi far right of Germany, the kind of blood and iron biz Markian sort of sense of imperialism, you know, a nation forged in the metal of war with France, that kind of older sense of Germany. But what's noticeable is the way that those qualities got mixed up with all this very modern, very online kind of q and on tinged, pedophile obsessed

conspiracy theory gibberish. And that tells you something about the way this stuff operates as it sweeps around the world. You know, it's almost like you know, when you go to different countries and you go to McDonald's and they always have like one burger that specifically for that country, Like you know, in Switzerland it's got like gray cheese in it, and in India it's got like mango sauce or something. Well, that's basically how this kind of far

right thought operates. You know. It's it's typically one thing like the Q and on nonsense all around the place, but with these very localized sort of flavors and distinctions that you see, and that's pretty much what we saw

in Germany with the far right. But it gives you that sense that Germany has had and has been for obvious historical reasons, much more acutely intelligent about I think, which is that the real threat to most Western societies does not come from radical Islam, and it typically comes from the far right, operating among the elites as well as on the streets themselves. And it was a good

reminder of that fundamental truth. Do we think if that's happening in Germany, that's got to be happening everywhere, right, That's probably true. I mean, there are countries that have proved quite immune to the populist and far right. I mean Portugal is one of them, which is interesting given that it was you know, sort of right wing conservative dictatorship just a few decades ago. But it really doesn't have much sort of time for it. But you do

see it elsewhere. You certainly see it in France, you do see it in Spain, you see it in the Netherlands. Across Europe, one of the One of the odd things about Europe is it's so it has an image of being extremely advanced and sophisticated in its politics, But when you travel around there and when you speak to political journalists around Europe, don't often say, well, we have a kind of a bigger far right problem than you have in the UK, you know, in terms of people and

in terms of the severity of the discourse. We just managed to predominantly freeze it out. But they can't always freeze it out. I mean, if you look at what's happening in Italy right now, Italy is being run by a woman who you know, comes from fascist lineage. Is now probably not quite you wouldn't quite use the word, but she comes from fascist lineage, and some of the rhetoric that she has, particularly around the family, is fascist rhetoric. I mean that that that's what it is. It's at

the very least it's facistic, you know. And then we see similar sort of moments across Europe. You see the same in Austria and in countries where there's that flutter, that opportunity for the far right, it's mostly been quilled, it's mostly been stopped. You know. This year it was stopped in France, although it came closer than any of us would have liked. But but it's there, and it's there across Europe. This is so interesting. And yeah, the

Maloney stuff is really scary. Also, I've read and again, I mean, do you think it's true that she's sort of targeting journalists in Italy? Yes, there's certainly an element of that. She has now tried to portray herself as far more mainstream than she really is, but essentially making a sacrifice on the Putin front and on the EU from they almost all make that sacrifice depended exactly the same thing. Leapin also wants to get out of the EU.

She also absolutely loves Putin, but she learned quickly enough that there's two things you have to shut up about if you want to win any kind of election in Europe. And it's like, shut up about leaving the EU, because they've all sat there for the last five years watching Britain make an absolute tit of itself and that doesn't look like a very good idea, and shut up about you know who is now seen obviously as the sort of the villain in a superhero comic. So on that basis,

she knows what to be quiet about. But her fundamental instincts are perfectly plain to see and have been repeated through long regular verbal utterances of her values. So I mean, we know what she's about, we know the kind of

people shell target. And as soon as these guys get in, as it was in nineteen thirties, so it is now when fascist from those on the far right get in, they target minorities, they target journalists, and they use any ensuring violence as a form of communication strategy to demonstrate their impotency. So on that basis, yeah, we would look with quite a lot of awariness about the way she's going to behave over the next four years. Jesus, I had an uplifting moment before. We could have left it there,

but now we're down in the deck. Agent. I should have let you, but you know, anyway, I'm very grateful to have you. That was so interesting and really important and also you're just so much fun. Thank you very much, Merry Christmas. Representative Promilagia Pa represents Washington seventh can National District. Welcome to Fast Politics. Representative job Paul. It is so great to be with you. Thanks for having me on while it's great to have you, and I want to

talk to you about my favorite sort of saying. You say you're a Biden convert. I'm sorry, I love it. I think a lot of progressives feel that way too. Can you talk to us about what that means? Yeah? Absolutely. You know, he wasn't my first or my second choice in the election, but when he got elected, he got elected in part through a really intentional effort to engage progressives. Before he got elected through the task forces Biden Sanders task forces, and I led one of those on healthcare.

And then when he got in, I have to say that the agenda that he ran on is the agenda that he governed on. He put forward really bold ideas, he didn't shy away from them. He really did what he said he was going to do for the diverse coalition that helped elect him. And I think that is somebody who also values the people around him. And so the progressive appointments of people to the White House have also been phenomenal. These are people we work with all

the time. Of course, his chief of staff around claim understands that progressives make up half or more of the Democratic Caucus, but certainly half of the legislative caucus, and so we have just had a really good relationship. Sometimes we're out in front and pushing for things that they can't give us. Sometimes we're right by their side getting as much done as we can together, and sometimes we're

pushing from behind. But the reality is this has been the most progressive president and Congress in my history, Molly,

and so I'm proud to stay I'm a Biden convert. Yeah, Now, I think a lot of progressives feel that way, and and I mean some of that was putting Bernie Sanders on budget right, correct, And I think that the progressive movement at large right when you think about the election and the fact that we had Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren as these really strong candidates who were putting forward ideas and then very engaged with the Biden administration after

the election, I think was incredibly helpful. And he was respectful of this part of the party, which I find sometimes hasn't always been the case. But this is a really unusual relationship for us as progressives. And the fact that we and the Progressive Caucus in the House have gotten so organized and leveraged our power has also helped They see that and they know that if they need

to get something through, they need us on board. So it is both his intention but also his ability to see what an important role we play and our power that all kind of comes together and makes it work. I want to talk to you about you sharing your story on the floor of the house because for h R three six for eight this is an immigration We are so sort of mired and immigration. Talk to us. You waited seventeen years for a green card. Talk to

our listeners about your own lived experience and the legislation. Yeah. Well, I came to the United States when I was sixteen years old by myself, and it was because my parents really felt like this was the place I would have the most opportunity. And my dad had five thousand bucks in his bank account and used all of it to send me here. And it's been rough because I've never been able to bring my parents, so we live on continents. We always have. You know, I came on a student visa.

I would I am the only one UM in Congress, or at least one of very few. We haven't been able to fully determine this, but that has been on an H one B visa. And I got it out of college because there was no other way for me to stay in the country other than to get a company to sponsor me for an employment based visa. And I spoke a lot of languages and so I was

able to do it. But the reality is, the way the immigration system is put together, it takes a very long time for people to be able to access immigration to the United States. It took me seventeen years to become a citizen, and that was when waiting times were easier. But today, if you're from Mexico or you're from India, it can take up to two hundred years to be able to get your Green card, and so we need to change this, and we can change it with the

Eagle Act. And so I felt it was important to bring my own experience to bear because a lot of the immigration policies that we have and the anti immigrant efforts of this country are not known to people. You know, people don't realize that it was very recent history when Indian nationals were not allowed to become US citizens. It took a Supreme Court case to change that, and that has sort of bled through into our immigration policies as well. And so while I hope, Molly, that we could get

comprehensive humane immigration on reform. The reality is we have been pushing any opportunity unity we can to move forward, principled compromises, things that don't set other communities back in order to set one community forward. But that recognizes that immigration in the United States is constructed in these very narrow ways, and different communities are only able to access certain ways of getting into the United States. For Indians,

that is employment based visas and family based visas. You know, for African nations it's the Diversity Visa. For Latinos, you know, we know that we need a pathway to citizenship and other ways that Latinos, for example, the Farm work or Bill, which primarily benefits Latinos, not only So you know, that's just the way it's constructed. So I hope we can get it done. Yeah, me too. It seems like it could get through Congress at least right it could get

through the House right now. But do you think there are ten Republicans who would support us. I do there is a plan. I think Senator grass Lee is on board with this. I think Senator McConnell i believes on board with this. Is you know, it passed in the last Congress, passed with incredible bipartisan votes. Unfortunately, we've had

a lot of Republicans peeling off. But this, the farm Worker Bill, and hopefully DACA are three areas where I feel like we could potentially get Republican and Democratic votes to pass it. And so if if this were to go through, it would be a huge boon for certain communities. The farm Worker Bill, and again, we have a lot of rural areas across America where we need immigrant workers to do that labor, and we can't just continue to

act like we don't and vilify immigrants. And so there are a lot of Republicans that are on board because they know it to be true. Yeah, I mean we have no solution now, So I mean, there's nothing right exactly. And that's the frustrating thing is that, you know, Molly, I was an activist for twenty years before coming into Congress for immigrant rights. So this is an issue I've worked on for a very long time to have lived experience with. And the thing is that in we had

sixty seven bipartisan votes in the Senate. In the US Senate for comprehensive humane immigration reform. There were some bad things in that bill, but we held our noses and said, listen, we need to get this done. Let's do it. It It would have been a path to citizenship and redoing the

family immigration system and so many other things. But John Bayner wouldn't bring it up for a vote in the House because he knew it would pass, and Republicans wanted to continue to keep it out there as something to vilify and divide people across them, and that is their number one playbook right there there. They just continue to vilify immigrants when the reality is that the country would shut down without the labor and the contributions of immigrant

workers and immigrant families. And it's very discouraging. But I'm hoping that we can get a couple of these pieces done, which would be significant progress, and then we just keep working to get the whole thing done. Yeah. No, and true. And you can't complain about a tight labor market and then say you don't want to have any immigrants. I mean exactly. One of the things you've been very vocal on is that Biden should run again. I think this is like a no brainer. But I'm glad you've been

saying this and I'm curious what you're thinking here. Well, my thinking is you reward a president who has gotten the most progressive legislation past in the history of our recent history of our country with another term. So I think that's the first thing. The second thing is I still believe that this is a very dangerous time in our country, and it is difficult to build the coalition

that you need to win. And we still have Republicans who are insistent on denying that Biden is the legitimate president, you know, and are still following Trump off the deep end. And I do think that Joe Biden is somebody who can still pull together that very diverse coalition that brought him into office in he has a great record to run on. We as Democrats, have a great record to run on, and I think we just need to continue

to support him. I believe he's going to run, and I think that we need to get out there in the next two years and talk about all the work that we have been able to accomplish, to move people forward so that their lives look different every morning, you know, and then show them the path to a fifty two plus Senate and taking back the House and keeping the White House that allows us to do the things like codifying voting rights, codifying abortion rights, getting universal childcare and

pre K. We were so close, Molly to getting that done in build back better, and I want to see the President finished the rest of his agenda. We all do, because it's the agenda that makes people feel like they can not to survive, but thrive. That was really heartbreaking. I have to say, to get so close and then to have that agenda foiled, it must have been really hard for you too. It was very tough, and I kept saying to people, you know, this is not I was very careful the whole time to call it the

President's agenda because it was the president's agenda. It also happened to be a very progressive agenda. But we had nent of Democrats on board, and we just needed a couple more. We weren't able to get that, and so that's why we need to build a fifty two Senate so that we can make sure we get that done. The Child tax Credit, that is a progressive legislation that was only around for a little while, but it worked really really wow. Will you talk a little more about it?

And then it was allowed to expire. It was a huge priority of ours in the progressive pis Rosa Deloro has been the champion of it um along with many others, and it showed us that poverty and hunger are actually policy choices, bad policy choices, but they are policy choices. They do not have to be as they are. And the child tax Credit was the perfect validation of that.

By giving people a child tax credit, we cut hunger in America by we cut child poverty by And so you know, for everybody who says, well, give us policies that work, we want things that work. We have shown that the child tax credit works. And it is much cheaper, by the way to help people in this way and than it is to do all the other things that we try to do that lift people up out of poverty. And so this is both smart fiscally, it is absolutely

morally imperative, and it works. And so the Republicans, of course, not a single vote for the American Rescue Plan from Republicans, even though they tried to take credit for it. Later we knew we couldn't count on the Republicans, and unfortunately we had to pass it through reconciliation, and we couldn't get all fifty Democrats to agree, and so Center Mansion did not want to continue with the child tax credit, and Republicans refused to go along with it, and so

it expired. But it is absolutely something that we need to continue, and we're working very hard to see how we can do that. It seems like such a no brightener. One of the false equivalency is that the straight journalists like to make is that the progressives are the same as the Freedom Paucus or as the far right. Both sides have gone too far. Can you explain to our listeners why this is really silly at best, silly at worst insulting. Yes, it is silly and offensive, and I'll

tell you exactly why. The Republicans and the Freedom Caucus are the party that are supporting insurrectionists who attacked the United States capital and the worst assault on the US capital since the War of eighteen twelve. They are supporting

people who are anti Smit addict. They are supporting people who are election deniers, who do not believe that Joe Biden is a legitimate president, who want to undermine the Constitution, and to then equate that with progressives who want universal healthcare want universal childcare, want families to be able to have good wage jobs and benefits. Is absolutely ludicrous. You know.

I was in Germany recently and a couple of months ago, and one of the leaders of a major party They're said to me, you know, Bernie Sanders and Progressives would be considered moderates in Europe because we have all those things, and I think that's really important. The Freedom Caucus is the party of No. Progressives are the party of yes.

We are trying to push as hard as we can to make sure that working people, poor people, folks of color, people who live in rural areas who haven't been given the opportunities that sometimes we have in urban areas, that all of these folks are left it up, and that tomorrow is a brighter day for the next generation. That

is absolutely not what the Freedom Caucus is about. So I always find that comparison ridiculous, and I'm really proud that in this last Congress we may have even brought a lot of Democrats over to realizing that Progressives are absolutely about pushing forward progress as much as we can, but we also know how to govern Molly, we know how to land them, and we are inspiring a lot of people across the country to know that we will stand up and fight for them. Progressives have been really

organized and there hasn't been drama. Speaking of which there's been a lot of drama on the Republican side. Today they are wearing buttons that say, okay for only Kevin. Is there a West wing unity candidate we're all I mean? Or is that just fantasy? No, there's not gonna be a unity cundidate in that we're not gonna have a Republican The Democrats bothore. I don't know if that was what you were at them, but yes, yes, that's not

going to happen. But listen, it's quite delicious to watch because because so many people kept talking about Democrats and disarray, well, here it is Republicans and Bruin Molly. They do not have the advantage of a speaker like we had um speaker Pelosi, who really knew how to manage a very diverse caucus. They are in a situation where Kevin McCarthy is allowing himself to be led by Marginali Marjorie Taylor Green, somebody who this weekend said that if she had been

in charge of the insurrection. They would have been armed and they would have won. I just cannot even believe that he's promised her a gavel on the Oversight Committee. And that is the Republican Party today, that's the brand

of the Republican Party. So he has shown us exactly where he's going, and I think it will paint a very sharp contrast with Democrats who created ten million new jobs, who cut hunger and child poverty, who are making things in America again, who are really fighting for working people. Because at the end of the day, Molly, we're the party Democrats are the party of freedom, family, and faith.

Freedom for the right to vote, freedom for the right to make choices about our own bodies, freedom for economic security. Family because we want to keep families together. We believe in all kinds of families, and we support families having the tools they need like childcare and free k and all the other things. And faith because we have abiding faith in our Constitution, in our democracy, and we are going to stand up for it. Thank you, thank you,

thank you. I hope you'll come back anytime, Molly, and thank you for all you do. I know you, our dear listeners are very busy, and you don't have time to sort through the hundreds of pieces of punnentry each week, and 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 politics pod dot com. Gina Raymondo is the United States Secretary of Commerce. Welcome to Fast Politics, Gina Romando. Thank you for having me. Good morning, very excited. So Rhode Island is like one of the places in my life and I want to talk to you about You have a very interesting path to Commerce Secretary. Will you talk to us first about the story of your father and the watches? Yeah, definitely, which is why I took this job in large part because you know Rhode Island.

You said you love Rhode Island. I of course love RhoD Island. You know, when I was a kid in Rhode Island in seventies and eighties, manufacturing, jewelry manufacturing was a huge part of our state's economy. Every seemed like all my friends dad's worked somewhere in a jewlry manufacturing company, and my dad worked at the Bolvard Watch Company. They had over a thousand workers in that factory in Providence

at the time. In it's ay day, and you know, he'd get his car pool in the morning with his brown bag lunch and everyone in the car had a job at the factory. Now he was he was a metallurgist. Somebody just felt really secure when I was a kid, you know, like one of his friends was a security guard, another guy was a custodian. Hr like it worked for everyone's family. And then we watched the whole thing be dismantled,

and it was really hard, you know. I remember he would come home and tell my mom they have a plan to dismantle this slowly and send all the jobs to China. And he was right. You know. It went from a thousand to seven hundred to five hundred to two hundred, and eventually him and all of his buddies lost their job and he was fifty six, had only

worked there, you know, his whole career. I was in sixth grade, my brother and sister in college, and it was just this like horrible pit in your stomach feeling every day because we didn't know what we were gonna do, and it was happening to everyone. Now. Suddenly the car pool, which seemed secure, was really insecure for everybody. And so that was a just like a really important part of who I am. And as governor, I spent all of my time trying to create good jobs in Rhode Island,

including manufacturing jobs. And when the President called me instead, I want you to come work with me and rebuild American manufacturing. That was about halfway through your second term, right, yeah, it was exactly halfways from my second term. I had been re elected in two thousand eighteen, and I was talking to him just around this time two years ago. Actually it was around Christmas time. I was a little reluctant because I was a sitting up and are during COVID.

But he said, like, let's that's rebuild manufacturing. Let's make things in America and create jobs for everyone. And I remember I called my brother and I was like, Tom, what do you think And they said Dad would be so proud if you could be part of bringing back manufacturing. So for me, I believe in it, but you know I lived it. Bringing back manufacturing in America is more complicated than it sounds. I mean it sounds pretty complicated,

and it involves the Cold War with China. Can you you explain to us what that means for semiconductors and for more manufacturing in general. Yeah, I mean, I don't I don't know if I would agree with Cold War with China, right, I mean's a bitter China has really took over a lot of manufacturing and pulling it back

is a very complicated order, big time. No, you're exactly right, Molly, absolutely so that we in the United States, we were just searching for cheaper and cheaper labor, you know, for increased profits and more efficiency, and so we were for decades obsessed with efficiency and lower labor costs and just pushed everything to China. Now there's a incredibly sophisticated manufacturing

infrastructure in China, especially for electronics. But the problem is, we woke up one day and COVID was a huge wake up call where we realize there's more things to care about than just efficiency, profits and the labor costs. Because when you're as dependent on Asia as we've become for all of your manufacturing, when you need things like ventilators or ppe or pharmaceutical inputs or semiconductors, and you don't make enough in America, or in some cases you

don't make any in America, you're in trouble. So you know, we're not saying everything should be made in America. That isn't what we want. That doesn't make sense. But enough of our most importan and goods like semiconductors which you mentioned, um have to be made in America so we can control our destiny. And oh, by the way, create good jobs. So how do you bring back manufacturing to America? What are the tools? Yeah, like you said, this is easier

said than done. There has to be a workforce component. So I told you about Rhode Island. My dad used to work days at the watch factory, come home, eat dinner, and go out at night and teach school at a place called the Jewelry Institute in Rhode Island, which was basically a vocational training school for people who wanted to

go into the trade of watchmaking and and metallurgy. All that is of course gone, so we have to And that's just one tiny example, but the same is true for tooling and designing and all kinds of skills that we've lost in America that we have to retrain people so they can work in higaming factory facilities. So there's huge workforce component that has to happen. The reality is there has to be some amount of government subsidy because

it's incredibly expensive or not incredibly expensive. It's more expensive to build a big manufacturing operation in the United States than in China Taiwan. So that's you know, that's what the Chips Act does. It's kind of you know, modern day industrial strategy. It's thirty percent more expensive to build a manufacturing facility in the US versus Taiwan. So we're going to have to work with companies to provide that subsidy.

And then it's the whole supply chain. So for example, the President, I was with the President last week in Arizona and opening a new, huge, fantastic semiconductor manufacturing facility. But to make that successful, they need the suppliers here, which they have in Taiwan, which they have in China. You know, the chemical companys and the circuit board companies and you know all the suppliers. So this is a

kind of a moon shot, sort of a goal. Um, but if we get it right, and I think we will, it'll just pay dividends unbelievably over the next decade for America. For example, like when you think about the states, the rust belt states where they lost all this manufacturing, people didn't have jobs, who had an opioid crisis, like this could sort of reverse that social problem. Right, That's exactly right.

And I did a lot of work with the recovery community in Rhode Island and with the opioid crisis that we were the first state in the country to have medical assisted treatment in the prison system. And when I would talk to my friends and leaders in the community who were recovery experts, they would say, the opposite of

addiction isn't sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connectedness. You need connectivity and a job is is critical arguably the most important you know, the most important thing to keeping when in recovery is a job. You know, a community, a sense of purpose, a place to go, a paycheck so you're not homeless, you know, healthcare. So I think you're right. And when if we talk about economic security, and I think even national security, it starts at home.

You talked about China with China starts at home. It's not just having technology here. It's having a strong America that's healthy and working and connected. Are there vocational colleges that are a part of this, Yes, definitely absolutely. Community colleges will play a huge role. Even high school as well. You know, there's a lot of career and technical education that could be done in high schools in partnership with companies. Um, we've got to get kids right on, you know, right

on this path. When I again dating myself, when I was in high school, there was like a shop program for the boys and maybe the girls had home back. So that's not what we want to do, but maybe you know, but the concept of attracting sixteen seventeen year olds to a job and teaching them the skills in high schools, that's where we need to go. You know, they could be doing um process engineering or being technicians in high school, going to school and then going to

Intel or coding or is this thousand? There's very many jobs. You know, you go to school and then after school go to Intel for your internship, or go to school and after school go to you know, a manufacturer to try out your skills. And by the way, it keeps kids in school, you know, I see it with my own kids. If you're learning calculus for a purpose, like you learn calculus in school and then go to a job and apply what you've learned, that's so much more

interesting and more motivated. One of the things that I saw when you were a governor was that because you had such a small state, you were able to deal with things that larger states weren't able to. You know, you were sort of head on with a bund to different things. What did you find from your experience governing that is useful now? Oh, so so many things. By the way, I always thought that whatever you can do in a small place, you can do in a big place.

And I still think that. And actually that's all the skills I learned and what I worked on as governor, I'm applying here in a much much bigger platform. So you know, it's about building coalitions of support, bipartisan coalitions of support, broad coalitions. You know, business and labor and community groups. Gotta gotta get buy in from everybody. But it's just also you know, as a leader, I just try to set the vision and be clear about it, let everybody know why it matters. And we talk about

supply chains or national security or semi conductors. It would be very easy for people's eyes to glaze over talking about semiconductors. But when you explain to people the reason you had to wait a year are to buy your dishwasher or refrigerator during COVID, or a car, or your car was so expensive because we didn't have semiconductors, people care about it. So I think it's a whole combination of effective communication, making it relevant and just getting buy in.

You know, I gotta work with people to get things done. It is also anti inflationary, big time. Absolutely. A year ago, thankfully, inflation seems to there's some hopeful signs that what the FET is doing is bringing down inflation. But you know, a year or so ago, a third of inflation was being driven by car prices. The reason car prices were

so high lack of semiconductors. I remember again, like last summer, I would talk to the people who run Ford and GM, and they would have thousands of vehicles basically assembled, but they couldn't finish making them simply because they couldn't get their hands on one or two or five any conductors.

It's crazy. So there was no supply, so prices went up Katherine Rampal, who I'm a big fan of, wrote a very smart piece and she talked about how you take a lot of flak from both the right and the left, but that you have really worked hard on talking to businesses and like figuring out what it is they need. I mean, is that your job is to sort of figure out how you can get them on board with the climate agenda and the manufacturing agenda. I mean, is that do you think of that as as part

of your job? I don't know. I mean I talked everybody today, I'm hosting a big meeting with labor leaders. I don't know. My job and the way I get things done is talked to all people affected by the policies we're working on, touch base with them, learn from them, and then try to find a solution. So I think it's a bad We're in a bad place if you get criticised guys just for talking to anyone, you know, I think that's a really bad place, and I'm going to resist that as long as I'm in public life.

You don't agree with everyone you talk to, but shame on you if you're not willing to have the meaning listen and learn right and also, I mean you have to meet with commerce leaders. You're the secondary of commerce, I mean exact job exactly. You were a VC before you're governor. How does that inform I'd like to think I'm a little more entrepreneurial because of that. I think I try to keep a fast pace because of that.

And I've learned since being in Washington. I definitely just have a different perspective having come out of you know, not having been in Washington for very long. You just yes different questions. So all of that has been helpful. But I also have just such an admiration for the

American entrepreneur, American small business. Like I lived with so many entrepreneurs who you know, they would sit down at night with their spouse and decide, Okay, I'm going to write a check to my mortgage, I'm gonna write to check to my grocery bills, and I'm going to write to check into the company. And you gotta admire that, Like that's what makes America great in so many ways. And so I'm just hold that with me when I do this job. And that's why we talked about making it,

you know, America competitive. It's it's for all those people who take the risk and go out on a limb and innovate and start a business, and we gotta we've got to be there for them, because that's that's the envy of the world. American entrepreneurship, innovation, ability, and willingness to risk take that's the envy of the world. And we gotta keep it going on. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Secretary. All right, have a good day. By

Molly John Fast Jesse Cannon. I'd say this is a moment of fuckory, but it's really a moment of absolute stupidity. Donald Trump Jr. Has tweeted this. I have to read this part because you can't see it because he has you blocked breaking. President Trump announced his free speech policy plan. So basically the story is, yesterday Trump had tweeted that

he had a big announcement. Some journalists took this seriously, thinking that perhaps he was announcing I saw some speculation that he was announcing he might run for Speaker of the House, because you don't have to be a member of the House to run for Speaker of the House. But luckily life is not the West Wing. Though I don't know that Trump being Speaker of the House would be the West wing more like VEEP. But we had seen some speculation about this, but it turns out, in fact,

the Trump's big announcement was trade. It was trading cards, n f T, trading cards, Yes and n f T and uh, and that was his announcement. Then there was a little bit of embarrassment because it was so stupid, and so Don Jr. Always one to try to save his father from embarrassment, ironically or not ironically, decided that he was going to tweet out try some new policy platform. And you remember, Trump has no policies, so his policies when he does cook them up, are pretty amazing. So

he's going to restore free speech overview. By the way, restoring free speech overview, that's what the document is titled. He is basically his entire legislative platform is based on the fact that he was taking off Twitter. As far as I can tell, it seems like that there's one dig at the Santa said here, it's nice he has something new to do, right, I mean, band federal agencies from colluding to censor American citizenships, so like, don't take

him off Twitter. Banned taxpayer dollars from being used to labor label speeches, myths and disinformation. Don't you know, nobody say that COVID anti vax stuff is not true. Fire every federal bureaucrat who has engaged in domestic censorship, whatever that means. For that, r T Bad Right revised section to thirty to drastically curtel big platforms power to restrict lawful speech. Basically, this entire legislative platform based solely on him having been removed from Twitter. Uh yeah, so we'll

see how that goes. But that is our moment of gray. 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.