Hi, I'm Malli John Fast, and this is Fast Politics, where we discuss the top political headlines with some of today's best minds. And Elon Musk's doge has fired six thousand veterans, but I bet it's actually more than that.
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If you'd like to hear the full conversation, please head over to our YouTube channel by searching for Fast Politics with Malli Jong Fast on YouTube. Please subscribe since we are going to have many, many videos every week. But first we have the Nation contributor ged here on the chaos inside the Trump administration and the perils of being a Canadian. Then we'll talk to former NFL punter Chris Kluey about his protests against pro discrimination Republicans.
But first the news.
Somalie. I got to say the Republicans every day, another bad poll comes out, but they're about to blow ahead with a budget that would slash medicaid and food benefits for millions.
Oh boy, it's.
Called one big beautiful bill, and it's big, it's beautiful, and it's going to make a lot of people suffer quite a lot. So this beautiful bell will be an eight hundred and eighty billion dollar cut for Medicaid over ten years. Eight hundred and eighty billion dollars. So think about that. That means that we will see last money for rural hospitals, less money for rural berths. Right, think about all the people who will have berths covered by Medicaid.
This will be painful. This will be the stuff that Elon Musk was talking about. This will be the pain that will affect the people. A lot of these people did, in fact bue for Donald Trump. It will affect a lot of Red state people painful cuts to Medicaid. It will also include that not covered under this eight hundred and eighty billion but a different silo will see cuts
to SNAP that is food stamps for kids. And we will see just stripping away tens of millions, actually hundreds of millions and ultimately billions of dollars from the very needy so that very very rich people can have their tax cut.
And that's where we are here.
Yeah, sounds like it's going to go very well.
I think it should be very power popular.
People really like to give tax cuts to very very wealthy people, and wealthy people shouldn't have to pay taxes.
Yeah.
I really had some hope when they started admitting that it doesn't trickle down. But nope, nope, not happening. So seventy one percent of Trump's voters opposed these medicaid cuts, according to a recent pull from Heart Research.
Yeah, I know you're going to be shocked to hear this, but this whole castle is built on sand. Trump's voters do not want this. These are not popular ideas. We got Republicans wanting to cut spending, save money for their donor class.
You know, they got.
Elected to make bananas less expensive, right because of the cost of eggs. They were elected because voters were upset about inflation. Well, now they've solved inflation by making it so that voters won't have any money for food stamps and make it make sense. We're going to see now. So again, this one beautiful bill is in the House. There are two beautiful bills in the Senate. None of these bills do anything that's going to make anyone happy.
We are barreling towards the government shutdown. Deep SNAP would worsend food and security, hurt local businesses, weekend snap's ability to boost jobs in every state. Remember, SNAP both gives money to needy people to buy food, but it also helps farmers, right, Like, those people have money and they use it to buy things in rural areas, right to
buy things that then are produced by farmers. So what you're doing when you're cutting things like SNAP is you're also hurting the economy around these people, besides hurting the people themselves. So all of these things have both intended consequences and unintended consequences.
Fun times. And you know, one of the really fun things is those claims to be cutting fraud. A lot of what they seem to be doing to us all seems to be fraud in that it's a bunch of bullshit. It's nearly forty percent of contracts kittled by DOJER expected to produce no savings, yet they're claiming otherwise.
Well, I think it's important to remember that fraud doesn't in this case. There's a sort of maga double speak here. Fraud doesn't mean fraud here, it means things that Elon doesn't agree with so fraud. They'll say, well, there's fraud, but what they mean is NIH funding for laboratories.
That's not fraud.
Like you may not like that NIH funding has this indirect payment towards your labs or the university that houses you, But that's not fraud. That's just not liking the way it's set up. So I think it is important to realize that Elon himself has taken a sort of Orwellian overview of language in a way that is pretty interesting. If this were about cutting spending, they would have auditors. This is not about and spending. This was never about cutting spending.
I agree.
Jeed here as a contributor to the nation and the host of the Time of Monsters. Welcome back to Fast Politics, my buddy, Jeed Here.
Always good to be on the program.
It really is like living over a mac lab, isn't it.
Yeah?
No, I mean it's it's quite amazing. And Donald Tremp was responsible for something I actually never thought I would see, which is the birth of a robust Canadian nationalism. You're seeing people at supermarkets are like closely looking at labels to see if things are American made or not, and actually not supermarkets are like putting on big maple leafs on as many products as they can to try to sell them because there's an active boycott of American made good. So I never thought i'd see it.
I never thought, Oh my god, you.
Money takes to make Canadians nationalistic.
Takes a lot.
It takes a lot.
Yeah, Oh my god. So so I.
Want to have another second on this talk to me about Canada, because it does seem like from what I understand about Canada, it's always struck me that you guys are pretty chill and not nationalists. Was it the attempted annexation that did it?
Or was it something else?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think having the American president every day talk about what you want Canada to be the fifty first state and referring to the Prime Minister of Canada as Governor Crudeau is quite a wake up call for a lot of people. And it's actually really upcurring to the politics. I mean, you've actually seen, just like in a matter of weeks, like the Conservative Party, you know, because the Liberals are the incumbent, it looked like the
Liberals are lagging behind by double digits. Just a few weeks ago, and the Conservatory We're going to be win like a strong majority. That is no longer happening. The Liberals and the Conservatives were neck and neck was just before they have a new leader selected. It has actively up here and politics in a way that I've never seen before. And obviously, like I always caution people, a lot of what Trump says this k fabe. It's like
professional wrestling bragging or whatever. But still like, you know, like I think most normal people, like they realize that what Trump is saying is not normal to talk about taking over Canada, taking over Greenland, taking over the Panama I mean, and it is like I think people like underestimate like how radical it is because what Trump and I think Musk in particular are pursuing is a policy
of global regime change. And it's interesting because I mean, like the usual mag Trump actually started off at TELTI Gabbert took me dead as a critic of what they call regime change wars, and they, you know, there's a critique especially of George W. Bush's foreign policy, how they pursued regime change wars and cause all this chaos and released. But Trump has like just basically inverted everything so it's like, no longer regime change wars against perceived enemies, it's regime
change wars against allies. Yes, yes, they clearly want regime change in Ukraine. Try to have regime change in Germany and failed. Trump calls me the King, Charles, the King of England to like hold elections. We're in an age where the United States has subtenly decided that all its allies our enemies, and all its enemies our friends. Amazing.
Yes, I want to talk about this for another minute because a congratulations Canadian liberals because honestly, good for them, because the whole idea here when Trumps them started. And again I use idea and scare quotes because really this is all like the vaguest concept of governing quote unquote. But you know, the idea was America first, which was this homage to this race is very nationalist, anti Semitic. Let's be honest here, as a Jew isolationists, we're not
going to fight the Nazis. And besides, they have some pretty good idea Slindberg right, that guy was not saying Nazis are bad.
He was saying, like Nazis they have some good ideas.
The idea now is that nationalism or that isolationism has faded away. And now because the mega donor who is ban growing this whole thing is a technocrat and also really very involved in other countries, he's decided that he's going to try and win elections for the far right in pretty much every country, right.
Yeah, no, I absolutely, or at least every former American ally, I mean that is I think that's an important point to underscore that, like part of this reversal of foreign policy is that Trump doesn't believe that America has allies, if Alisa has these countries that have taken advantage of America, like trading with it. Because Trump always talks about McKinley, and I sort of feel like somebody, maybe it was Bannon, maybe it was Trump didn't read a book about McKinley,
but just told them there was his president McKinley. He was great, He had tariffs, and he annexed territory. He annexed the Philippines and Puerto Rico. And then Trump thought, oh, are going to be like the new McKinley. So if there's an idea behind that, it is this. So let's go back to the eighteen nineties. Trump's repeatedly said that's what America was at its richest, which I gotta tell you, back then people were living to age forty five. It
was not you know, you were getting here. Your basic energy policy was a children in coal mines, pressing ful talk to.
Me about McKinley, because you know, you actually know a lot more history than I do, so talk to me about what it was like.
I think it was called the Gilded Age because it was the age of rubberbs. There's the age where it was like a Republican president, but not just regular Republicans. I mean, at that point, the Republicans had given up, you know, their one redeeming aspect as a party, which is that they were the party of abolition and later the party of reconstruction and of black civil rights. And then it became purely a party of the business class.
And McKinley, through his like his Carl Rove figure, which is a Markana really wanted to you know, like it's like sort of like Wall Street dominance over everything in a period of the age of imperialism, of social Darwinism, right like dogg eat dog. So we're gonna let the business class be unregulated to whatever the hell they want, kill strikers. And also America will be an imperial power like the Kaiser and the King of England, and we're
gonna like gobble up all this territory. And I gotta say, like, to me, that doesn't sound good. And actually, if I wanted to like underscore, like on a more broad philosophical level, like it's important to understand that this age of interimperial rivalry, right, this idea that you know, American foreign policy should be just about expansion and rivalry with other imperial powers. That's the motto that actually was in place before World War One, and that is actually what led to the First World
War and all the disasters of the twentieth century. That is, the decision of the elite to pursue imperial warfare, and that led to the most catastrophic war humanity had ever seen at that point, and also the sort of destruction of the old order that led to the rise of fascism and stalinism. So I personally think that's not good. So I don't know why you would hold that up as a model for how you want to build an
international order. But you know, like obviously, you know they're there, I mean, and not just obviously like like these guys are pretty blunted, but it p you feel, like Peter til and Elon Musk, that is the golden age of capitalism.
And I think, you know, like if one one step of materialist analysis, the McKinley Gilded Age was built up because you know, America had this huge burst of growth but which was not equal, which was yeah, when you had people like Rockefeller and Carnegie and JP Morgan gobble up all the wealth and led to a social darwin
And society. And what we're seeing now is a replication of that with Silicon Valley, where we've seen like you know, this enormous theoretical growth of wealth, but it's all being held by these like you know, super billionaires, like you know, like not just a billion dollars, like tens of billions. And I think, you know, the glothes are like Musk
is to become the first trillionaire. Right, if you have that level of economic inequality and these sort of predatory types in charge of the economy, they will also have a huge sway over politics. And you know, just as like sort of like Rockefeller and Carnegie, you know, we're basically gave first to McKinley. You know, Musk and Peter TiO and I have to say Mark Zuckerberg have driven birth to Donald Rum.
I'm happy to criticize Mark Zuckerbrok just because he's not quite as fascist as the other guys.
Yeah, yeah, but he's willing to join up when he would it's necessary.
Right, And by the way, I mean I wouldn't even say that he's not as fascist as those other guys. I would say earlier he was slightly less terrible except for the ruhingen jen aside, which perhaps you.
Know, yeah, but maybe even I mean you look at Zeckenberg, I mean, like, do you remember the period where he's getting his haircut to look like the emperor or Augustus or these busts of the Emperor Agusta, And that was his ideal, like I'm going to be like the Emperor Augustus is ancient Roman. And you know that's not too far from like Mussolini saying, you know, we're going to be the new Rome. And I actually like Musk himself.
I mean I have to say, because we talked about Canada, Musk has Canadian roots and this was some interesting writing about this. His family, you know, had been back in Canada in the thirties and then went to South Africa and then came back to Canada in the nineteen nineties. But my grandfather was involved in this Canadian movement in the nineteen thirties called technocracy.
Yeah, talk to us about technocracy.
So it was the idea that, like it's a great depression. Things weren't working, and so the idea was that the problem with society is there's too much democracy. Yeah, that's what that, you know, like you had these ignorant pez and you know who had voted for stuff, and what you need is to have like the engineers and the experts in charge of everything.
You know.
It is was a North American counterpart to fascism of having an idea of like, you know, explicitly anti democratic. And you know, I have to say they had a certain problem with people who celebrate Hanakah. Let's say, yes but to Tese restaurant. Yes, I go to Chinese restris at Christmas.
Yes, I've heard of these people. Yes, I may be one of them. Yes, continue it's.
Also anti Semitic, that is, like el must grandfather normally I would say, like you know, like you're not responsible for your grandparents, although your grandfather was a cool guy who wrote smartacas. In the case of Elon Musk, I mean the fact that he replicates the politics of his grandfather quite closely in one of your kind of technocratic stuffs and actually doing what conservatives are now you specifically
calling the stiff armed salute. Yeah, because like you don't see island like you know, like the Nazi salute.
But no, yes, yes, the stiff arm salute. I'm learning so much on this interview, the stiff arm salute and also this idea of this sort.
Of technocratic fascism.
So talk to us a little bit about this idea that you think perhaps Elon is going back to these tropes.
Yeah, no, I think that this is a case where you know, Shakespeare says the dog returns to his vomit. Must's idea is that there, you know, people like him, the high IQ people, the people who should repopulate the earth by sending their sperm through FedEx to every woman they meet, but not paytons of word. People like that should be the ones in charge. And this is the whole idea of like those you can't have Congress, you know, the traditional arm of government that dispenses funds and sets
of government agencies. They shouldn't set the rules. They should be Musk and his team of teenage Stanford super geniuses, who are gonna be like mucking around. I mean, this is an attempt to impose a kind of technocracy on the United States. And I think, you know, like classical fascism, it has this problem of creating chaos more than anything.
I mean, I think that people have a stereotypical view which is wrong, which is that the idea that Weissalini made the trains run on time, you had this efficient war machine. And no, no, I gotta tell you, like historians, you know, there's a reason why those guys lost the war. Right Under classical fascism, what you have is a culture personality around the leader, and then various factions competing to
please the leader and often fighting against each other. So one of the reasons why the Nazi screwed up so much, thank God, was that like like every faction, like you know, the Gestapo, the ass him, where has scoring all the fun guys? They were all finding each other all the time. And what we see is in the Trump administration as well, because Musk has set up this technocratic pseudo government within a government, and like it's asking all the employees to
send their messages every week of what they're doing. And then all these Trump cabinet members are saying to their own staff like, you know, like no, you don't have to do that. And so so you have this these competing government factions but totally conflicting claims because Musk is saying, if you don't send me these emails, you will get fired.
And what you're gonna get is a real period I think of government breakdown and government chaos, you know, which leaves I think up to the opposition to explain what's going on, explain that this is all being done on the behalf of Musk and his billionaire friends as basically a cash grab.
Yeah exactly.
I mean I think Bernie, you know, like there's other people that are doing this. I mentioned Chris Murphy as well, but you know there's a few Democrats and Allied people that are doing it. I mean, like Bernie is going out there to Omaha, going out there to like Nebraska, and like you know, like going to Iowa explaining to people like what's going on and drawing huge, huge crowds, right, Yeah, I mean my only question is why where Democrats are
doing this? Like I actually think that is the way forward, Like just explain to people what's going on. There's a lot of people are angry about this. And if you go as Brittie's doing, to these like you know, purplish districts that are kind of swinging that people in Congress there, you know, they're going to get nervous. And I think that I think that's the way forward.
Yeah, No, I agree, And I think when you're talking about this, it's important to remember that there is a lot of chaos happening here, and the chaos is the point. The thing that I keep thinking about is like they are radicalizing a pretty significant portion of the federal government.
Yes, absolutely, Yeah.
The thing I'm thinking about that's really like sticking my head is this idea that Elon's telling everyone they have to respond to c emol or they're going to get fired. Trump is saying Elon needs to go harder, and then people like Cash Patel are telling the people he works for not to respond to the email. So in a sense, there is no authority. They've squandered any kind of authority they've had, right, because do you work for Cashpital or do you work for Elon Musk or do you work for Trump?
Or do you not work for any of those people?
Yeah? No, absolutely, I absolutely I think that we're going to get I mean, a period of chaos. And I have reached a big worry for me because you know that a lot of the functions of the federal government are actually essential. I mean, there's the reason why we have air traffic controllers, and so it's like created chaos
within the you know, functioning of the basic government. I don't think it's gonna it's going to end well, but I don't think we could do at this point is to set up an opposition that's ready to take advantage of the crisis and to like, you know, push forward.
I do think that the issue here is just Democrats being brave and that they need to put themselves out there and not worry about the sort of norms and politeness that they love to self destruct.
And do you agree, Yeah.
No, absolutely, absolutely, Yeah, yeah, I know. I mean it is a very serious existential crisis for American democracy. I think it's good to go to bedrock principles and just like, you know, explain very clearly what is happening. And I have to say, like you, just looking at Bernie's recent tour, You're going to find a big audience. You know, You're going to find a lot of people that respond to that. And that's the beginning of you know, sort of change
and regeneration. Just start organizing people.
Again.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you all.
It's great to be on.
Chris Kluey is a writer and former professional football player who was a punter in the NFL.
So excited to have you.
Welcome Chris, Yeah, thank you for having me on. I really appreciate it.
So I want you to talk about how your political awakening happened.
I'd say my political awakening happened in why. I can't really point to a specific date.
It's been, you know, I think as for most people, it's been kind of an evolution over time because like I grew up in southern California that you I was born in nineteen eighty one, so so the California kid in your late eighties, early nineties, Like I'm not going to lie, I told book the language like I you know, I did not have the best views because that was the culture at the time. But as I grew older, I realized, hey, wait a minute, why am I saying
things that hurt other people? And I don't want to hurt other people. So I make a conscious decision to change, and then that just kind of continued. I met my wife, You know that that helped a lot too, because obviously she's smarter than I am.
So trying to make sure I listened to her.
But yeah, I'd say the real big part would be the first time I spoke out in favor of LGBTQ rights back when I was playing for the Vikings. That really kind of catapulted me into I guess the public knowledge sphere.
And yeah, that was a real interesting experience.
So I'm wondering, if you know there's so much pressure for professional athletes to not get involved in politics, you know, speaking out for people who are LGBTQ that strikes me as like a moral decision.
Talk me through how you got there.
Sure.
Yeah, So at that point, I've been prettiest published as the Viking's punner, had set most of the team records for punning, and you know, I was feeling pretty pretty good in my position there. During the off season, I had been approached by a group called Minnesotans for Marriage Quality and they were working to overturn the state was attempting to pass a state amendment that would have banned
same sex marriage. And so they had seen my Twitter account, you know, where I posted like things I agreed with, things they disagreed with, and they're like, hey, you know, we think this guy might help us out. So they got in contact with me and said, would you be interested in helping us try to defeat this amendment. I was like, well, yeah, of course I'll help you. I don't think states should be in the business of entraining
discrimination into the state constitution. That seems somewhat Unamerican or very American if you know.
Your history right exactly.
So anyway, so started working with them.
It was pretty low key at first, like it was, you know, a couple of radio appearances, doing talks, you know, just meeting people, trying to get them to understand that like, hey, gay people, they don't want to ruin your life.
They just want to be free to live their own. Yeah.
So so they continued that way for the most part, and I made sure to talk with the team's legal department beforehand. I'm like, hey, like, you know, what are the rules on this? From your perspective?
What can I do? What can I not do?
Like, as long as you're on your own time, you can do whatever you want, you know, just just don't do it like at a you know, team facility, or like during a game or something like that.
I'm like, that's fair, I can do that.
All my advocating was on my own time as a private citizen, which everyone should be able to do. Right, We're all human beings, we're all American citizens. We should all be able to advocate for the society that we want to live in. But then I went super viral when I wrote a letter called they Won't Magically turn you into a lustful cock monster, and somehow that picked
up some attention. From that point there was like, okay, yeah, now the national organizations they're interested, you know, feeling calls from all over and the yeah, that's that's what it became a big deal.
What I think is so important about being a professional athlete who speaks out, you know, against discrimination, because that's really all you're doing here, right, is saying it's bad to discriminate against.
People for who they love.
As a professional athlete, you really do have a lot of power in American society. So I mean, did you feel like the other athletes, did you feel supported by them, or did you get criticism or did nobody notice in your work world?
Yeah?
Yeah, So in the locker room, it was a really interesting mix because I had about like sixty percent of the guys came up to me and said, you know, we fully support you, like, you know, we support everything you're standing for, And then about forty percent were like, you know, we don't really agree with you on the same sex marriage issue, but you know, we appreciate you speaking out for first amendments, like, you know, everyone should have.
The freedom to speak.
And what I thought was interesting was that that breakdown kind of mirrored the public support breakdown for same sex marriage at the time. It was, you know, it was pretty close to sixty forty at the time in favor of allowing same sex marriage. I think what it goes to illustrate is that, rightly or wrongly, people put athletes on this pedestal. Right, you know, we do have a large platform, we do have a large voice, But at
the end of the day. We're people just like everybody else, and we come from a very broad array of backgrounds, especially the NFL, like the you know, you get guys from all over the country. Sometimes you get guys from outside the country, and so a locker room is not this homogeneous thing. It is a very diverse workspace. Hopefully President Trump doesn't try to get rid of it because it's a divis workspace, because that might negatively influence the NFL.
But I don't think he's a fan of the NFL anyway, So we'll see what happens there.
Colin Kaepernack was so incredibly careful about the way he focused on Neil laying and you know, every single bit of resistance he picked was set up in a way to be as respectful as possible while still being political. I noticed you doing some of that in your most recent speech to talk about that and then also what that means to you, right.
Yeah, So obviously, from my personal perspective, I believe Colin Kaepernick got blacklisted from league. I'm not going to say he's the best quarterback that was playing at the time, but he certainly was one of the thirty two that should have been on the tee. There's no question about that, and that is my professional opinion as a former football player,
like he deserved the r team. The problem with the NFL is the majority of the owners are old, rich, white guys who donate to Donald Trump and vote for Donald Trump, believe a lot of the same things as Donald Trump, and they're the ones who signed the checks.
So until management makes a decision that things are going to be different, labor can't really do a whole lot because labors at risk of losing their job. So I think what Kaepernick did was very brave, very necessary because obviously it sparked a conversation that we still haven't finished having right. Police brutality is still a problem in the United States, but you know, at least it's higher in the level of the social conscious than it was before.
But yeah, my wife and I were talking about how if I hadn't been blacklisted for LGBTQ rights, I definitely would have been for taking any I would have been right there with him, because again, like I think that's an important thing to talk about because if in our society, if one person isn't free, then none of us are free, because eventually they're going to come for you, and like we're seeing that right now with the Trump administration, Like
trans people are just the start. He's trying to erase trans people. Then he's gonna move on to the rest of the LGBTQ community. Then he's going to move on to the people that support them.
And so if you want to keep that from happening, you've got to speak up for trans people.
Now.
Yeah, one hundred percent.
So when you spoke up at this meeting, talk to me about sort of how you pick that place and what that was like, and also sort of how that reflects your activism.
Now.
Basically for me, this isn't my first city council meeting with the hunting Commut City Council.
Yeah, clearly.
Yes, I've been showing up to these meetings for I think over like two two and a half years now, because they've been trying to mess with the library for about two and a half years now, And it started with one of our council members at Gracie Vandermark. She wanted to ban a bunch of books from the children's section. They were all LGBTQ books, and so the community was like, hey, wait a minute, that's that's a book ban can't do that. And so then she came back and tried to install
an oversight panel. They would judge the you know, the content of all books in the library, and the bad ones would go to their own special place and you know, you need permission to check them out. And then the community is like, that's just a book banning, Like you're just talk about banning books again. So we started a community petition, got well over like fifteen or sixteen thousand signatures.
Then she tried to privatize the library, and the community is like, no, we don't want our library privatisa you can take control, We want you to leave the library alone. Started another petition that one got over fifteen or sixteen thousand signatures. By the way, the council meeting where I got arrested, both of those petitions were on the agenda as well, and the council is trying to ignore them because they don't care about our community. All they care
about is accumulating power for themselves. So then that brings us to the Maga flat, which is where I was like at this point, I'm like, okay that these people clearly don't care about us as a community. They don't care about what the community wants. And so I was like, Okay, well, if your intent is to put MAGA front and center on this public library, which public library supposed to be
a political anyone should be able to go in. If that's your intent, I am going to tell you exactly what MAGA stands for, because I'm a history and police ion ager, and the parallels are really clear.
So but I also.
Knew they have a habit of tuning us out and like just ignoring everything that he does, So I knew it needed to be something more. And Huntington Beach is kind of a microcosm of what's happening in our nation, and that this is what it looks like when MEGA gets controlled. They don't care about the community, They don't care about people. They care about what they can do, what power they can wield, and how they can get more of it. And that's what we're seeing play out
right now on the national level. So the point of my protest, the peaceful civil dos obediance was twofold. It was one, Hey, this is a local matter that you know, I really care strongly about, but two, this is also a national matter, and this is what I want to see our democratically elected officials doing like they they should be the ones leading the charge in this. And I think it really feels like there's a giant round swell of anger towards our elected officials that why aren't you
doing anything? Like we can see what's happening. We know you can see what's happening. Why aren't you stepping up? Like where is John Lewis?
Like? Right, who's causing good trouble?
Yeah?
I mean what you're talking about is the same thing that Jane Fonda was talking about at the.
SAG Awards, right that this is the moment? Are you going to be brave?
Right? Yeah, we're living in a documentary right now, like you don't get a second chance.
Yeah.
My grandfather was jailed for the House and an American activities. And I often think, you know, who's blacklisted under McCarthy, And I often think about, like what do you do when this is the only choice? So I'm wondering, do you think that you'll run for office? I mean I think you should. No, I'm sorry I did tell you. I know how fun that is, and I just had my own problems with it.
But talk to me about that, right, yeah.
Yeah, So I've had a ton of people ask me that I've had local Democratic clubs reach out and you know, I've spoken at a couple of them, just you know, kind of to like help transpire people. And my main concern is being as effective as I could be, Like, you know, I don't want to be a figurehead that runs for some office that already has a Democratic official in it, and then I'm just taking someone's job who's already doing it well.
Because for the most part, aside from our local city council, I'm fairly happy with our representatives. Like I wish, yeah, maybe.
They were doing a bit more, but on the whole, like they've been pretty good, and I'm not going to take someone's job that a I don't want to do.
That they're already doing well.
Yeah.
So yeah, So I'm still in the sort of, I guess exploration phase of trying to figure out what will be the most effective way to go forward and help people become aware that we are in an existential crisis, like our country is in a crisis, and that we need to decide whether we are Americans or we are someone who bends the need to a king, because those two things cannot coexist.
What do you say to people who are like, yeah, Democrats are always hysterical. This is just meant to be. You know, this isn't as bad as they're saying. It is in my mind. I you know, did a YouTube series on Project twenty twenty five, so all this, you know, I knew they wanted to expand executive power, strip the federal government of any sort of autonomy it had, and made it make it an arm of the presidency. So
what they're doing to me is not so surprising. But when you talk to people who are low news consumption people, how do you explain it.
One good resource actually that just came out recently, I would say the watch Governor Pritzker's speech, because he does a really good job of playing out beat by beat, you know what, here's what Nazi Germany did.
Guess what, here's what we're doing.
And I think for me, one thing I found that that helps get a lot at traction is asking people like, you know, as an American, are you okay with a king?
And most people will tell you.
No, right like, because a you know, we all learn in like first or second grade the founding of America. You know, that the founding father is fucking George, like like, we don't, we don't have a king, and so then you you know, then you tell them, Hey, the official White House government account posted a picture of an American president with crown on his head and referred to him as a king, like that's frankly the most Unamerican thing
I can think of. And it regardless of your political affiliation. We have to be able to come together as American citizens that say no kinks because other way, like I said,
we're not America anymore. It can be tough to make people care about it, but if you can get them to understand that, like, really, this is about who you are as a country, I think that goes a long way towards getting them interested and sort of been nitty gritty of like, okay, what do these individual actions mean, because because let's be frank firing the three JG's like, that's a really bad sign.
That's what you do when you're preparing to order the military to take illegal action.
It does feel like there are so many people who are not standing up for us. There are so many people in our government on the right, but also some on the left who are not being brave you have been really if you got arrested, you went to jail, right like Jane Fondo who went to jail all these times and is eighty seven years old, right, I mean pretty good. But like when you think about it, how are you brave? Like what is it? And you were? Do you ever like freak out?
Yeah? Well so, I mean I was.
I was nervous going up to the podium right, like, like it wasn't the most nervous I've been. That was probably my first NFL game, Like it's probably the most nervous I've been. But yeah, this one, I was like okay, like yeah, this because again you're you're preparing to break the law because what you feel is so strongly, like you feel so strongly about it that you're willing to break the law to show other people that this is important.
And for me, a big inspiration along those lines is you know, the mainteen sixties American civil rights protest Like this this was where we as a nation, you know, kind of had to decide like are we are we a segregated nation or are we a nation that like truly is freedom for all? You know, equality for everyone. The Vietnam protest. That's another one, right, Like, that's again, this is an unjust war that's killing tons of our young people. Why are we doing this?
Right? And you have a bunch of brave people standing up to that and not fighting, but showing that they won't comply and that this means so much to them that they're willing to break the law to make that statement. So for me personally, it's not so much a matter of bravery, but it's what would I want someone else to do if I was in the position of being oppressed, And so if I want someone else to speak out
for me, I have to speak out for them. If I want someone to get arrested for me, I got to get arrested for them.
Otherwise the whole thing doesn't work.
Do you think there's more of this kind of bravery in sports world now or do you think now?
Well, I mean, we'll see, right.
I know there are a lot of well educated football players, you know, stereotypes to the contrary. I know there's a lot of guys who care about their communities and care about what happens in this country.
The question is is are you willing to give up one of like the dream jobs in the world in order to take that stands, and that's a really tough ask and it's a really tough decision to make within yourself because you've got to provide for your family, right like you got to provide for kids. And on the other hand, if society starts falling apart, well it doesn't matter that you're going to play in the NFL. It's going to become really hard to provide for your family
and kids. So yeah, I think I think a lot of guys are probably.
Having that internal question right now, and I would hope to see more people speak out and call out what's happening because they do have the platform and they can make people aware because again, I think that's another thing that a lot of people don't understand. Donald Trump won with a plurality and half the country didn't vote, So that means whatever mandate they're claiming is twenty five percent
of the population, and that's not a mandate. That's okay. Yeah, we had a lot of disinterested people in this election. We need to find a way to get them interested because obviously this is what happens when you're not interested in your country. But to say that, like this is what the people want. No, this is not what the
people want. This is what a very racist my minority of the country wants, most of the rest of the countries, like, just leave me alone so I could live my life and hopefully my Medicare covers my hospital bills.
Yeah, I think you're a hero, But do you regret opening the door to this as someone who, like I grew up with a mom who wrote about me all the time, so I never you know, I never knew what it was like to be normal, so I never had the chance to like not be this.
But I wonder, like, do you ever want to like undo it?
So the thing is like, yeah, obviously I wish I didn't have to be the one to do this because the people in power aka are elected officials, and I know I complain about our democratic elected officials a lot, but like, the Republicans are just being treason thiss cowards right now. The whole purpose of our separation of powers is so that when you have a president wants to be a king, Congress shuts him down. And right now
Congress is abdicating that duty. And it is solely on the shoulders of the Republicans because they hold a majority in both houses. That being said, I don't want to have to do this, but the problem is I have to do this because otherwise the country I want to live in will cease to exist. Like I was happily retired up to this point, like my life was pretty quiet.
I was a day with it. I would rather be home playing video games. Yeah, that's what I want to do.
But because this is where we're at, I need to step up and do something because if we keep going down this path, things will start getting worse and worse and worse.
And I do not want things to reach that point.
Really appreciate that.
And I think, as much as I hate to say this to you, because I feel like it's really mean, you should run for office.
I.
Know no one does. That's the problem, is it. That's how we're here, you know, right?
So yeah, I mean, like I said, we'll see what happens.
I'm trying to figure out what the most effective way forward is because again it's it's going to take all of us to get through this and survive.
I'm not being hyperbolic about that. It really will take all of us.
Yeah, I know.
Thank you, Chris, Yeah, thank you for having me on I really appreciate it.
And now we have a special bonus excerpt from our interview with former Vice presidential and Minnesota governor Tim Walls, where he talks candidly about what went wrong and what went right. I feel like you and I have been through it, not together, but the twenty twenty four.
Cycle serendipitous in a very strange way. Like I met you, I was, you know, like forty eighth out of fifty governors if people knew or something, and you had me out. We went to correspondence dinner.
Yes for me, that was really fun, big deal.
And we have watched this evolution and the heartbreak of not finishing this damn job. And I think you and I and certainly the Vice president and others knew what the result of not winning was going to be.
So yeah, it is when we talked through this and we talk about what it looks like the sort of federalist I mean, you guys have a lot more power. Like one of the things that I always fault Democrats for is that, or at least I looked at Republicans, you know, during Biden's we saw Texas really and Florida really just be like we're doing our own thing now, and Democrats can do that to a certain extent, right, I mean they may be punished. Yeah, So talk us through that, yes.
And look, I hear the thing out there is is that when we get back, which we will, we'll fight. I'll tell you what people are gonna expect is they're not going to expect us to tinkle around the edge with the ACA. They're going to expect universal health care. And if there's a lesson here, I always said this. We had a one vote majority in Minnesota. When we move clean energy, we move reproductive rights. We moved, We moved a whole slew of progressive very popular including things
around guns and gun safety, very popular thing. We moved it with a one vote majority. And people ask, well, what do you call a one vote majority a majority? Simple as that these guys have learned that lesson and governors have that ability. I'm in Europe trying to foster what I can on the trade.
Now.
Look, if they cut our funding, it's two billion nine, you know, out of a roughly thirty billion dollars state budget, So in a hole that we can't fill alone. But there are things that we can do. There are things that we can push back on. There are things that we can separate. Now. The irony of this is Republicans being all about state rights until they're not about state rights.
Of course, you're still establishing ourselves. You know, we're sub federal level of government, but we have a lot of autonomy. Like I can be invited to the Netherlands to speak, and I said this, Molly, that I'm a rule follower. That used to be politics ends at water's edge means right with the unified voice to that. I recognize that the position right now, official position of the federal government is that we're not going to support Ukraine. That's not
the major of Americans. And you can walk that line. And I think that's what we need to do more of. We need to push back. And again, I hope everybody, and I hope Republicans know this. You are teaching us a lot of what happens when we get back and control these You know that we need to we need to deliver for people because and that's their downfall in this Where are they delivering for people other than just angst and anger and taking it out on immigrants or whatever.
No egg price is down right, folks, that lost their jobs. Now you've got confusion with our neighbors. So I have to tell you a saying I always said was is do you lead with good policy and good politics will follow that. And the inverse of that is true, bad policy will lead to bad politics. And I think Democrats got caught in the wilderness that our policies are popular, but for whatever reason, we didn't articulate it in a way that turned to good politics.
So I have a theory of the case that I've shared with Biden World, and they're very mad at me that the thing they did wrong was this cautiousness, this fearfulness about interfacing with media, social media, mainstream media. You know, if it's scary, shut it down, if it's too popular, like calling someone weird, shut it down. Talk to me.
Yeah, And look, it far be it from me to critique because I own you know, I own this, that it was my responsibility to help get this thing one and so I'll take my shortcomings on this. But I do think there is a cautiousness around that. I think that we should be more willing to speak to people where they're at. I don't think we should be so worried about are we putting ourselves out there and going
to be asked hard questions. We should be asked hard questions right then we should lead and talk about the things that make a difference in people's lives. And I think people did not know how much better our economy was because they weren't feeling it. I think we left avoid that they're going to fail.
To hear more of this interview, please head to our YouTube channel, Fast Politics by Mollie Jong Fast.
And a Moment Jesse Cannon.
Miley Jung Fast.
Earlier in the show, we discussed that Doge is not really about spending and that a lot of the cuts they're claiming they're doing are not real and they're not really adding up to the math they've said they're doing. And now he's made an admission about the productivity email his group sent to federal workers.
You'll be shocked to know that all of this is a big smoke show. So Elon says that the productivity email his group sent to federal workers he wanted to test whether they were capable of replying to an email. You'll remember that, like a lot of other Trump officials, actually said not to respond to the emails. So this email, what did you do last week? Failure reply would be taken as a resignation. Well twenty four hours before the deadline.
Musk hinted that the emails were simply a ruse to ensure federal employees were capable of responding to his correspondence in the early hours of Monday morning, which when everyone should be tweeting as opposed to sleeping must reply to American venture capitalist Gary tan On x that he shared a post claiming that Doge wouldn't be capable of reading all of the federal workers' responses, calling the initiative stupid and performance hard.
Okay again, sure.
This seems like a huge waste of everyone's time and I feel like instead of doing this, Elon should be.
Hanging out with his many children.
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going.
Thanks for listening.