Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, where we discussed the top political headlines with some of today's best minds, and pride events have been canceled in Florida out of fear of hostility. We have a star studded show today. California Congressman Eric Swolwell stops by to update us on the mess that is the US Congress and talks to us about how the debt ceiling hostage situation is playing out. Then we'll talk to Nebraska's state
Senator Megan Hunt about the NonStop fuckery in Nebraska. But first we have legendary Democratic strategist James Carvill.
Welcome to Fast Politics. James Carvill.
No, how fast I am, but.
It's good made up debt ceiling bullshit. What should Biden do firthing?
You need to run two miles out and don't call it debt field and call it default rule number one to default or not the default? That's the question. That is a better word. And of course being held hostage. Your communications has not been that year. It should only talk about default or not default. It should talk about the fact that there is no such thing as a Republican budget. Joe Biden has submitted his budget. The Republicans
have been in polished in January, no budget zero. The third thing that needs to be pointed out, according to David Jolly from a Republican Consem Florida, the kind of a budget scholar, the United States has been acquiring debt since seventeen eighty nine. Twenty five percent of that total debt was during the Trump administration percent that's about one
point six percent of the time in the years. So you have to prepare people get our budget that all they want to do is just slash veteran slash law enforcement, but dard enforcement class education. And the communications coming out of there has not been very consistent and it's not been what I would consider repetitive enough. But where we are,
and the following is probably going to happen. It's going to be a shitty deal from the vantaged plinty of Democrats get to meet and say, look, what would be worse if we wrecked this economy? So we're going to take the deal. Of course, there's going to be direquisite amount of somewhat appropriate bitching and screaming from mostly but not all, from from the left of the Democratic Party.
They'll be a lot of that knowing own and we'll say, well, we ought to run on this in the next election, but this going to be the choice between taking a pretty unsavorable compromise and negotiation all wrecking the economy, because they will wreck the frick an economy to do this.
I mean, you need five seeing Republicans.
You have to talk to legislative people, but that takes a while, right, get up on mornings. They're going to have a discharge petition.
What about like minting the coin or selling You.
Can try it, but the courts will probably knock it down, you know, gimmicky. Look, people don't even know. Maybe we started to say it's not yet, that's already been acquired. You can say all of that, but it really doesn't through re published. Remember we started coming, but we sure didn't prepare anybody for where we are now. The other thing, though, I don't know how much else they keep losing election. Have you noticed that? Yeah, yes, they're losing in Foriday're
losing Virginia, they're losing in Pennsylvania. They're losing in Wiscona. They're losing in Colorado. I mean, name a place and they're losing.
Yeah, so if you were in that administration right now, what would you do?
What I would do because it's what I know I would do, Message discipline and message enforcement. They don't call people in say you know, this is what you should be saying, and don't say that, and don't say that, limits say default, you know, talk about how the president had proposed a budget. They have no budget. There's nothing to negotiate with. And who were the ad to tell us about debt when they are, you know, acquired the gazillion times more debt on the Republicans and Democrats.
Yeah, what's so interesting about the demands? Are they want to make the Trump tax cut permanent, but make sure there's a work requirement for a snap. I mean, it's like just completely schizophrenic, right, It's never been about the deficit.
The Trump tax cuts truck Carlo has off the chart. Just come on, man, you're not in reality. The Trump tax cuts did nothing, but they rich people rich. They had been study after study after study. It was a giant waste of money. But it was good to stop buybacks and that's about it. The problem is when you're dis deep into it and you knew from the beginning that they were that are not that was going to be their negotiating position. No, no callback on the Trump text.
We didn't prepare anybody for that. So now we're down to you know, I don't know, drop dead day. Let's say it's Yellens being a little panic. Maybe to drop dead day is June sixth, I don't know, but we're just kind of starting to try to find some kind of message. And the Trump patches are not.
Popular at all, nor should they be.
No, there's no reason for the bait, the games. All of the people who didn't need it more money, and they had zero effect of improving the economy.
Trickle down economics never works. I mean that's what we see again and again.
It's no longer an opinion. I mean, study after study after study after study.
So what do you think about I mean, we're in this Republican primary season. Everybody in the world is jumping into this not Trump lane. I mean, what do you think happens now?
I tell people, I'm really I'm not very good at prediction being things, but it's going to happen clearly of it. Dart term hump isn't profound legal jeopardy I mean profound and the least there's a problems Alan Braight and THRM mc daniels. I mean, it was just jaw dropping story today about the supoenia all these business records, because obviously have a suspicion that he took this classified information and
was exchanging it for money. I mean, you know what I mean, I much lost to the owner a bunch of a lawyer. But I have some idea or what it would take to get a federal judge to sign off on a subpoena of a lawyer's notes. Right, That's that's so to get to be kind of fundamental about it, To get us to be that, you have to show probable cause. We think, you know, we got an information, belief that this guy, you know, he was stealing watching and we want to search his house to find new watches. Right,
that's one standard we want to climb. Fraud ecception. We want to subpoenas his lawyer. That's a much higher standard. You just can't go in there on information and believe. You have to have something pretty dog on substantial. It's clear to everybody that the Fulton County is going to indict her. Ask you a lot of other people, and the judge is going to show him out today publicly about what he can say and not saying. I mean Trump doesn't cay. He's never followed the law in his life,
and he's always been able to gain it. I think it's catching up with it or do to do.
Even if it catches up with him, Even if it catches right up to him, it doesn't matter for the base.
Well, president matters outside the base because they're losing elections. Reford, right, is there a point where the base breaks? Well, maybe the base is forty percent, but how much of that is hardcore? Maybe twenty eight percent. And the nightmare for the Republican Party is this is that he loses something and it all gets fragmented and goes to different people. And remember the most important thing to remember without prediction, but just I don't know the rules first and the
democratic rules that we have proportional representation. So if it's three people running and somebody, if it goes forty thirty thirty, where you get party, You know, you get four dollars gates out of every ten of the two people get three. The Republicans are mostly want to take off because you go forty thirty thirty, you get one hundred. So let's just say they have of all these people running and Trump loses something, but it's still solidly high percentage of
Republicans that vote for him. It's a nightmare for him.
Yeah, and that seems like a very likely outcome, doesn't it.
It seems like one that you would consider. Yes, Governess, stuff has some effect, but not the hardcore people, and the hardcore people are always going to be more excited than the people are. Semity enough with the guts too much, you know that like both the might not. But the people say that the deep state is surrounding him and r you know, then you did something else. The Democrats are always pissing him, moaning about our problems and we can't put this together and this isn't it and that
problem is cool my god. And of course, yeah, pressures all gaga over Tim Scott because god, anything makes to be seen where that goes.
It's hard to imagine that you have Republicans voting going from voting for a racist to voting for someone who is not white.
Pretty hard. They hadn't one pulland one percent. You know, we'll see where that goes. But he's uh, you know, he's running as a happy warrior for these Trump riders. They're very happy.
To me, there's a lot of anxiety in the punding class about Biden. I mean, do you think it's slayed? Where are you on that?
First of all, the age is legitimate issues. You just can't say that, let's pivots to the real issues here. Okay, you're making this up. And fundamentally he's not a very good position right now. Now what they would say, I suspect them eighty five percent short as they say. Look, James, you know this economy takes a while for people to see what's going on to appreciate it. You know, Clinton got wiped out by before Obama got right out to you. And by the way, we get much better than they did. Yeah,
and attitudes are going to change here. And you know all you nervous Nelly's, you know, are in around and talking about this and that. You just wait, the publisher will come to appreciate the job. But he's done. And Trump needs Biden because that's the only Democrat he could be, And Biden needs Trump because that's the republic he could be. And it's kind of weird. In this way. But they're going to have to work around the age issues because he's not going to dissipate at all.
It's a different issue when you're running against Trump than when you're running against DeSantis.
Right, DeSantis is a really unpleasant man. So here is something I teach when you're in politic, you have enemies of necessity. So somebody is the governor and you want to be a governor, Well that's that's an enemy of necessity, or your governor. Somebody wants to take a job and you want to get re elected. So that's the enemy of the sisty enemies a choice or entirely different. And DeSantis has poor judgment. So the key player in all of this is Suzi Wilder.
Interesting.
I mean, I can't tell you how central she is. So Susie Wilders was some law famous football player in them, and she was DeSantis's person. She she's a go to person board and she was as fundraised as she was his everything. And miss desantist he's going to be a erupt is a much bigger issue. It just goes knocked her off. Well, she whipped the ball. I go. Now we're seeing stories about his use of jets and everything. And now they're the story with him texting love harness.
Miss Casey Desanta's is having a headache because Miss Wilde is app dancing on her head and she's just getting started.
Yes, and that's what we saw with the negative Casey Desanta's story the other day too.
Oh they're come in left and right and they're putting out. And I'm not a professionist at all, but Casey, his clothes is not the clothes of somebody whose husband makes one hundred and seventy five dollars all here. You can tell you a lot more than that. But miss Wilder is h knows who had to barrier your body, and she's taken the people around right here did right here to say the least. She's she's very active and you know, Roger Stone, they don't play by the Marcus or Queen's
very rule or anything like that. I think Casey and Ron have brought the wrap of God on them. You know. The other thing, Molly, so how you I've been a lot of campaigns and you know, I don't forget to talk about the ethnol something to the here. I don't get to talk about you know, it's a big issue here with some environmental leak or whatever. So you tell you right before you go, you say, don't forget to
be human. Remember in the Roman times that I always when the emperor was in the chariot, there's always a slave that was riding it within me, whispered your model, your model, your model. It goes to wisdom and things in Romans. The fans got to have somebody with him, like the advanced guy. Get every now and then you know, just be human, be human. You know, like you're going to here, don't you know you gotta when you order the cheese steak, don't no order but Swiss cheese like.
And you think ultimately that could be his undoing.
He's kind of box himself. He looks ineffective of the Disney all right. It looks like he picked a fight and he got blooded up. That's a bad framework for him. And he's not you know, one story doesn't knock anybody out.
The finger putting story journalist for you, yortin Margaret Hortman, and she is obsessed and the funniest ship about DeSantis that you ever had to get her on your show because she said no one could survive the putting thing the story, and of course Trump got right on that, and I wouldn't be surprised if he would not Susie Wallace at least that story. I wouldn't be surprised at her.
You really think Susie will has ultimately been Trump's batch kind of tool here?
Yes, she was. She's got more a lot where she works Trump now and in her mind she made Ron and take consent. She you know, the strategies put together fundraising. I mean, she was kind of, you know, matriarch of the art of Republican Party. And Casey knocked her off and that that was not a smart move. That was a poor enemy of choice, I said, I think, and I don't know. I don't know, Miss Rolison have no interest in getting down window.
Either, right, I think that's probably a good call. I want to ask you one last question right now, what is keeping you up at night?
I can't think that. Sorry, I mean, you know, that's the faulton. I don't think it's much of a chance. But I worry five percent that there's some Almo si left in the Republican Party, but less and less worried
about that. It's so much talent in a Democratic Party, and that's something people don't understand up and down the ladder and what Keith up is no one gets to see that because I think if people saw how talented some of these people are, because we're viewed right now by the public is a kind of old party, urban, you know, not particularly exciting, you know, generally kind of constipated, and they'll include a lot of America and what we see.
I think that people that if they get center stage, can show just how how much talent there is at this point. And it's a lot. It's everywhere, and some of it, you know, potential presidential level. Some of it you know, four eight years away. I mean mainly three more talented people in westmore Josha Biro Andrewshire. You can't. You just can't. Now maybe a few years. I'll look a look at our friend Ruben Drag, a really talented political dive and very talented, very into it. I mean
that they're everywhere. Gretchen Whitness, freaking super star.
I think we would be remiss if we didn't mention that Mississippi governor's race.
I ran in I was at Monscas. We're into Dississippi today. But to Sparksdale Walter Eye. It's in the manning and stuff that both of them there. Everybody's into this. In the corruption because its Mississippi. People don't think about it alive. They just they can't dismiss it. Like hate Rees's personal trainer that like one point four million dollars in state money. There's so much corruption that it's unbelievable. And Brandon is running hard against it. And I think we're in this thing.
I really do, I really really do. And that's going to make a difference in me because these government you're going to have a half million people when he expands Medicaid. Guess half million people for a state in the country.
James Carville, thank you so much. I hope you'll come back well.
Thank Molly.
Congressman Eric Swallwell represents California's fourteenth district. Welcome back, too fast politics, Eric Swahwell, I'm Mollie so excited to have you. So I want to talk to you about minting the coin and the dead suit. Can we mint a coin and we can give them the Republicans what they want, will give them a billion dollar coin that looks like Vladimir Putin. Yeah, put Donald Trump's hair exact, put a Vanka on the coin.
We should do whatever it takes to not see millions of people screwed out of their savings. I am in the camp that, you know, as I look at the fourteenth Amendment, as I look at the Constitution, and how does it make sense that we could authorize and spend money but we have to go approve, you know, to increase what we can borrow that we've already authorized. So that, to me, the fourteenth Amendment is pretty plain that you
can't you know, essentially go back on that. So sure, should we negotiate with them to be you know, as responsible as possible with taxpayers money?
Yes, but Mally, you know what, we already have work requirements.
They're asking for work requirements as if they're the first geniuses.
To ever come up with that.
Those are already in place. You know, they want to see the debt come down. Well, the debt has come down faster under President Biden than it was certainly under Donald Trump, where it increased by nearly forty percent. So I mean, this just seems like a own the lib exercise by them, and we're trying to figure out what it is exactly what they want.
Yeah, I mean it seems like when you look at the list of demands, they want to make the Trump tax cut permanent, but make sure to not cut defense spending because God forbid, Raytheon shouldn't get its check cut. I mean, it just seems like sort of villain stuff, right.
And by the way, on defense spending, nothing will bring down defense spending more than us being able to again rely on all the allies that Donald Trump alienated, Right, I mean, if you have more friends in the world, you don't have to spend as much on your own defense. So I actually think Joe Biden has a long term policy through our alliances.
To do that.
So again, this just feels like these guys they don't really understand what they're holding here and how volatile it is. And I think part of this is for many of my colleagues, like this is like the first serious job they've ever had.
Right, that's kind of scary. When I first got elected, I.
Thought I was serving with a bunch of people who had turned down, you know, much better paying jobs to serve their country. Now like we serve with a bunch of people who had made up a bunch of shit you know about their background to get here, and now they're like trusted with real responsibility and we're paying the price. And they talk about this molly like it's a government shutdown, that you could just shut it down and then turn
it back on. And government shutdowns are awful, but you can, you know, eventually reopen government.
People get hurt.
You can't undefault, like once you default, that is, you know, a permanent standing as far as your credit.
They do not seem to understand it. But also, do you worry that McCarthy, even if you were operating in good faith, I mean, there's just supposition over supposition over you know, even if you were operating in good faith, that he wouldn't be able to get the votes.
There are a number of Republicans who are going to vote against this no matter what. They just don't want to help Biden and Donald Trump. At that town hall, he said, you know that quiet part out loud, which is like we should just default because he thinks Biden will be blamed for it.
Right, so he in his you know, naked thirst for power, he.
Sees this as a default hurts Biden and it helps him, and so he's cheering, you know, from the sidelines for a default, and then he gives them this weird permission structure where he says, you know, we're going to do it anyway, we might as well default because we're going.
To do it anyway.
And so I think you've got just a class of Republican colleagues who want to see that happen. The real question that's raised here is whether McCarthy could bring a vote up, lose twenty to thirty Republicans pass it with Democratic support, and would those twenty the thirty who vote against it, whether their next move be, you know, to try and depose McCarthy a speaker, and I think that is what he's thinking of.
More than anything, I want to ask you about the discharge petition. I mean, I've asked other people about this. I mean, is it just there's no time for a discharge petition or do you think that's a real possibility.
If Janet Yellen is correct, we don't have the time to go around. This would be late June, early July vote at the earliest.
And by the way we've seen before, you know, the way you count congressional days, you can play around with that by not like ending a day's session and like fading it into the next day. So McCarthy really didn't want to do this. He's got, you know, the means to do that. Look, if I have any criticism or complaint, it's just that we're not telling Americans more clearly what this is. And what this is is that Americans pay
their bills. When you rack up a tab at the end of the night, when it comes to you pay your tab. When you have agreed, you know, and received a benefit from spending or future spending, you agree to handle it. This is America's tab, and as I said, a good chunk of it is Trump's tab. And so Republicans pay Trump's tab and not dine and ditch on the American economy. And I think we have gotten into you know, government speak about you know, let's just raise a clean debt ceiling, and that doesn't.
Mean shit to anybody, Like no one has any idea what that means.
When you say, you know, we should raise a clean debt ceiling or we're going to use a discharge petition like that, that means nothing to most Americans.
You know, we pay our bills. You know, Trump spent a lot of money.
To help billionaires, and now the bill has come and if we don't pay our bills, you're going to pay for it and the job that you're going to lose, the savings that's going to tank, and the economy around you that will suffer. Like like, we need to make it, I think, more personal rather than talking about good government and what we've done in the past. Again, the fact that we raise the death stealing three times under Trump, it doesn't mean anything to people. We need to make it more personal.
I want to ask you about this FBI January sixth tranch of communications that just were uncovered. Clearly a lot went wrong on January sixth, for which a lot of lower level people have been jailed, but there has not been any kind of accountability up the chain. Do you think that any of this will lead to that or do you think that this is just not how we do justice in this country anymore.
Well, look, I'm really concerned about the FBI agents who attended the rally right and then ultimately would have their security clearances revoked. And I'm concerned that, you know, Republicans are holding them up as you know, quote unquote whistleblowers, and by the way, they won't give a single whistleblower protection to anybody in the Trump administration. Remember, they wanted to out the whistleblowers. They wanted to docks the whistleblowers.
And now they're you know, heralding these people is whistleblowers. And so that part concerns me. But I have to say when it comes to January sixth, I don't want to blame the victims too much here, you know, I don't I don't want to blame the police. I don't want to blame the FBI. Like Donald Trump told us. I think it was on December nineteenth, in that two am tweet that January six will be wild, and then he.
Fired all these people up.
And you know, we had thousands of police officers you know, around the Capitol, and Donald Trump failed to invoke the National Guard. He wanted his rioters, his supporters, you know, to be able to get around weapons screens. Let me, I put this almost entirely on Donald Trump because this was his FBI at the time. I mean, they could only go as far as you know, the permissions they would get from his Attorney General, who at that time
was all in for Trump. So I do think, of course, like the capital will look different, you know, for future January sixth certifications. But I want to be careful not to let Donald Trump off the hook in any way. I mean, this was entirely of his doing and the doing of the people who enabled him and did.
Nothing to stop.
Yeah. I mean, do you think though, that there's more coming? I mean, what is your sense. You've been, you know, part of this investigation congressionally, you know you have a lot of insight here. I mean, do you think there's more coming?
We have our own suit against Donald Trump, and we're waiting for a Court of Appeals decision that is imminent. If it goes our way, we expect to be in depositions and discovery very soon. And we actually would be in our suit, we would be able to get more information, I think than anybody else because we are bringing this in my personal capacity, and because I'm doing it that way, many of the privileges.
Trump and his team have stood on to prevent people.
From getting information, whether it's Congress or other suits, he would not be able to use because I'm bringing it in my personal capacity, and so many of the privileges would go away.
And so I do think this, you know, in.
Addition to ultimately holding him accountable, this will be another thread stream of information about what Donald Trump did and didn't do on January sixth. But again I just think, Molly, sometimes it's our nature is a CSI ncis consuming society to believe that like the reveal comes, you know, in the last episode of the season. But actually I think with Donald Trump, he kind of starts where.
He's going to end.
He's told us exactly what he's going to do, and then he's done it, and we keep thinking we need like some sort of you know, reveal or smoking gun, but like he's never hidden front it, and so we're just conditioned to think that, like there's more and I think we had enough when he sent that tweet that it will be wild and then just stoke get from there.
Yeah. I mean it is interesting like when you see the kind of like e Jean's case, which is such a great example of like just a person being defamed being able to hold Trump responsible for the defamation, that there are creative ways or not even creative, but you know that you may have to take a more circuitous route to hold Trump accountable.
And what I like about e Gene is you know she is continuing to play on his side of the field, right, She's like, Okay, you.
Want to keep talking shit, great, see you back in court.
It's going to cost me.
And that's the only way the guy is going to learn, as I said, is you just have to play on his side of the field, and you have to set the rules and the terms and not let him do it. Otherwise you get the town hall that we saw a couple of weeks ago.
I'm wondering now that we're in this hot campaign season again, you and I both, I feel like, have had this experience of being just taken a lot of like death some just a lot of really scary stuff from Republicans As it gets hot again, are you anxious? I mean, like, do you think that Trump has that kind of rhetoric or do you think I mean, what's your take?
Yeah, he is Amazon prime for death threats, right, he puts some in your inbox or on your doorstet pretty quickly.
You know, he'll say something, it'll fire up his supporters.
And we and just the last you know week have been back to peak death threats and they're parroting Trump.
McCarthy. Uh, you know what we saw from Tucker Carlson's rhetoric in the past.
And actually, I think you're going to see as he starts to feel the heat from other candidates in the primary, they'll get them too, right, I mean, because his followers are not they're not partisan at all, you know, very much cult like, and so they'll be aimed at Republican colleagues. And my it's just what frustrates me is that the
best way. And Jonathan Greenblot from the Any Defamation League told me this a couple of years ago in a congressional hearing, that when threats and extremism are denounced by both parties, it sends a message to people from those groups that there's not a green light to do it. And he said the silence also sends a message that your silence is almost permission. And so I always think about, like, what if we, you know, saw more unity as an
antidote to this violent landscape that we live in. But you know, Jerry Connolly, my colleague from Virginia staffers were attacked last week. I worry a lot about family and staff because they sit on what I call the X. You know, they sit on the target there. They don't move around like my colleagues and I and other elected officials were just always on the move. That's the nature
of the job. But your family and your staff are the ones who are just hitting ducks in the first place that you know, someone who wants to carry out these threats will go but here at the end of the day because of the threats are also designed to deter you from speaking up or deter you from participating in democracy. And what I hope your listeners understand is
we are winning. We are beating these guys every single time from eighteen to now, with the exception of just narrowly losing the House, we have one or beat expectations. We just won in Jacksonville, right, We just in a Republican state, you know, we beat a MAGA candidate. We just won in Wisconsin, you know, on the Supreme Court. So in on years off years, we're turning out. And so what I hope we don't see is just an exasperation or intimidation because you know, violent rhetoric is really
the only play that Magnation knows how to run. And so they're also so they recognize how effective we are at turnout now, right, So what are they attacking. They're attacking early voting and young people voting. Right now, you're starting to see this movement.
To increase the voting voting. Twenty six are voting.
Yeah, So when they start to go there, that tells me we're doing it right, and we just we have to see this election. I think as our best chance to really bury the MAGA movement. That we've got a real shot because they're on a losing streak, and I think if we don't give up, we can see this extremism extinguished.
Yeah, let's hope. So if we survive this Republican created dead ceiling debacle and we move into the summer, what is this sort of thing that's keeping you up at night?
These guys, I think have to do three things over the next two years. Republicans. They have to pay our bills so that we all don't suffer. We have to keep the government functioning and open this fall, and we have to keep Ukraine in the fight. And I really worry about the third because of Donald Trump's town hall he said one he would not condemn Putin as a war criminal, and he also said that he'll solve this
in twenty four hours when he's president. Well, if you're Vladimir Putin and you hear that, what you're thinking is, well, I can stay in this fight for eighteen more months. I can wait for Donald Trump to give me a better deal than I'm going to get from Biden and NATO. So I think when Donald Trump said that, we just bought eighteen more months of carnage, you know, on the
battlefield in Ukraine. And by the way, eighteen more months from a leader in Vladimir Putin who has run an interference play before against America's democracy, and so you better believe he has a preferred candidate. He has a candidate who says, way till I'm president and I'll solve this. He has a candidate who's receptive to Russian interference, and so we better be ready for that and call it out a hell of a lot faster than we did when it happened in twenty sixteen.
Yeah, thank you, Thank you so much, Eric Swallwell, my pleasure.
Thanks Molly.
Hi, it's Molly, and I am wildly excited that for the first time, Fast Politics, the show you're listening to right now, is going to have merch for sale over at shop dot Fastpoliticspod dot com. You can now buy shirts, hats, hoodies, and toe bags with our incredible designs. We've heard your cries to spread the word about our podcast and get a tow bag with my adorable Leo the Rescue Puppy on it, and now you can grab this merchandise only
at shop dot fastpoliticspod dot com. Thanks for your support. Megan Hunt is a state senator from the great state of Nebraska. Welcome to Fast Politics, Nebraska State Senator Megan Hunt.
Hi, Molly, thanks so much for having me.
I'm excited to have you. The thing we talk a lot about here, but sometimes we don't get people who are actually like living and doing in red states. We talk a lot about what you're faced with every day. Tell us a little bit about how you ended up in the state senate in Nebraska.
Oh my god.
Well, I feel like I never meant for any of this to happen. So like that's going to be the title of my memoir. I don't know how I got here, but you know, my background is really in entrepreneurship and activism. I've been a business owner in my district for about twenty years. I ran a little clothing store like a boutique for about ten years, and right now I own a stationery store, and that's just like my background, and
you know, I'm just a mom in the neighborhood. And in twenty fifteen, I got really activated with a group of people who who wanted to update our sex education curriculum in our public schools. At the time, our county had some of the highest rates of STDs and STIs in the entire country, and our sex education curriculum hadn't
been updated since nineteen seventy one. So since then, we've had the Internet and the AIDS epidemic and an increasingly out LGBTQ population and all the mental health challenges that go with that community. And we just knew that in order to fix this stuff, we had to make sure that kids were getting age appropriate, medically accurate, research based education.
And long story short, we did it. And it was in a red state, in a red community, against a lot of odds, and it was really really hard, and I kind of got bitten by the policy bug, Like I organized so many people to get that done, and I started to realize that people were seeing me maybe as a political leader, not just as a business leader. So I was like, well, I feel responsible, I feel like I have to try this. And in twenty eighteen
I was elected by a landslide. I just got re elected by a landslide, and now I'm just here trying to do something.
That explain to me what your district is like, and what it looks like, and what the problems of your district are.
Sure, my district is very diverse. It's one of the most densely populated parts of the state. In midtown Omaha, which is sort of our population center here in Nebraska.
It's very progressive.
It has a lot of college students, it has a lot of families, We have a lot of neighborhoods.
We also have two kind of prominent business districts.
So if you want to in Olaha, if you want to go out for a drink, or go to a theater or go to a good restaurant, you're probably coming to my district. So it's that part of the town and the issues that matter most of my constituents. The top three things are access to healthcare. You know, we just recently finally expanded Medicaid, which is hard to do it red state, and we got that done. Support for public education, whether that's our universities or our K twelve schools.
And then the third thing that people really care about is decreasing the partisanship that we have rising in our state and local politics. That's one of the top things people talk to me about at the doors when I campaign is, you know what they don't really relate to or respond to the hyperpartisan rhetoric that we hear coming from federal politics and in state and local politics where you can like actually know the people.
Who you're voting for.
You know, these are our friends, our neighbors, our community members, and we have seen a lot of that partisan division infecting our state and local politics for the first time in Nebraska. I know that in a lot of states like Texas and Florida and Missouri and Arkansas, like it's just it's always been this way, like it's always been hyperpartisan,
it's always been winner take all. But in Nebraska, we have a really strong tradition of libertarianism and non artisanship and kind of these you know, hardworking Midwestern values are not just conservative values. But all of that has really changed a lot in the last eight or ten years just because of you know, billionaires putting their money into our political system to help themselves.
And how has it changed, Megan, Well, I.
Think that we have fewer people who are running for office who are motivated by a real problem. You know, I never wanted to run for office. I never saw this being in my future. Like I said, like ten years ago, I started caring a lot about sex education in public schools, and then that just led me down this rabbit hole of like, Okay, now I'm a state senator, but it was that issue that motivated me to start working on these things that led me into the political arena.
For most of my colleagues, and I say most, like more than fifty percent, they are not issue motivated. They are not motivated by experience. They are motivated because somebody wealthy came to them and said, if you run in this district, I will give you a blank check and make sure that you win. And then these people get elected. They don't have any passion for this job. They don't know what they're voting for. They don't have any motivation to do this work other than they were installed here
by somebody who made it work their time. And that's you know, citizens and people should know that that's what's happening in politics, and it's a mess.
It's terrible.
It's funny because as you're saying this, I'm thinking about this No labels trying to get the Democratic senator Mansion to run for president basically hope, you know, making him a promise that he would again. This is supposition. We don't know that this is for sure too, but I want to ask you, so you're seeing this sort of turfed legislators coming in, yes, completely, and they're not so
committed to their own values. They're largely committed to the values of the sort of Koch brothers or the types of billionaire donors.
Yeah. I hate to sound like Adbusters, like this leftist freak, but it's like, yeah, it's just the literal ruling class. They have figured out that they can install who ends up running things, and that gives them all the influence that they could ever want. We also have this thing in Nebraska, and I know this is like very Nebraska, Like I don't want this to be boring to other listeners, but no, I.
Think it's not boring. I think we're really interested.
In what well we have this other new problem where in the legislature if somebody resigns or dies or leaves office somehow, we don't have a special election.
They aren't appointed by the city council or anything like that. They're appointed by the governor.
And so we've had a succession of billionaire governors, billionaire conservative Republican governors like Pete Rickett's, and he sets up senators with a plush job so that they retire early, and then he gets to their replacement, and then that person he picks gets an incumbency advantage for the next election.
And so another thing I think we need to do here is put in place some special elections so that you know, right now, nearly ten percent of our legislature in Nebraska is populated by senators who were appointed who were never elected, And I mean, what.
The fuck, right right right? That seems kind of nuts.
I don't think people know that in Nebraska. I think we just have a durse of knowledge.
I want you to talk to us about if you feel comfortable talking about what you've faced as a parent in your state with their anti LGBTQ legislation.
This has been molly the most depressing session for me.
I mean, all the stuff I just told you about, like the political process and stuff and how messed up it is. That has always been true since I got elected. But we still knew each other as colleagues, Like we have the only nonpartisan legislature in the country, and we also have the smallest legislature in the country with just forty nine members, and so we really know each other. Like I've been to these people's houses, They've come on
trips with me to conferences, They've babysat my kid. They know me, they know that I'm not a bad parent, and you know, yesterday at the signing ceremony for LB. Five seventy four, which is the bill to ban healthcare for trans kids, Governor Pillen said, he said something like he can't think of anything that's more pro lucifer. He used the word lucifer talking about these parents who are trying to get gender herming care for their kids, saying
that they're basically in the grips of the devil. And how can all of my colleagues who know me and my son stand behind him when he signed this bill and says these things like, I really think eight ten
years ago in Nebraska this would have been unthinkable. This guy would have been lapped out of this state, and now this is mainstream politics, and it's so depressing to me, like to say nothing about how this affects my son, how this affects me as a single parent, what this sends to other parents in Nebraska, or you know, people who love trans people at all or have them in their lives.
Just the process has degraded. It sucks.
I have three teenagers, and I relate so much to this, isn't it, Mark, I'm a teenager. It's so hard and.
They suffer so much. And you know, and I know that if one of them had wanted.
Or needed gender firm and care, you know I would not be you know, I would be in the same position that you are. So when I listen to you talk as a mom in a red state, I mean, you know, you do what your kid needs for them, and if that means you know that they feel they were born into the wrong body, that's what you do. And I just, you know, I so feel for you.
You just get them the care they need.
I mean, if your kid has a broken arm, if they have a cough, if they have diabetes, if they have any medical issue at all, if they're sad, like you try to get the care they need, and raising a teenager in the best of circumstances is very, very hard, and so it is literally just trying to keep these kids a lot.
You know, my eldest son had a kid in his class. I mean, we have seen so much suicide in these teenagers who we're living in this world where these teenagers are, you know, so fragile and you just want to do for them. And the fact that Republicans have decided that these kids who are suffering so much are their enemy is just beyond yes.
And it's completely reminiscent of what the queer community has gone through forever.
But I mean, in the seventies and eighties and nineties, we started to see more gay representation in the media, started to see people being out in the community, and that became more acceptable to people. It was like, you know, maybe I don't understand being homosexual, but my aunt's friend is a homosexual and I met her and she was really nice, and you know, it's just the exposure. But
we don't really have that in the trans community. And so they're doing the same tired old playbook that they did with the gay community in the seventies and eighties. To trans children in the trans community now, because they are the ones who are most vulnerable. They don't have the visibility, they don't have the lobby, they don't have the political power protection.
Yeah, I mean, it's just such a fucked up thing. So how are you going on where you live? How are you surviving? Well?
I feel like, you know, I just try to really step back and take a macro look at how the world really is.
I mean, life is short, the world is big.
The love that we have for each other they're in community, and the support that we have for each other is nothing is so much greater than any of my colleagues could ever understand, and so much greater than anything any law could do to us. And this is what we have to remember. Like, you know, maybe my future is not going to be in Nebraska. I don't know, maybe my future is not going to be in this country.
If these laws keep getting more discriminatory. Maybe at some point I'll say, you know what, world, I did my best for this place, and I have to prioritize the health of my family now and move somewhere else.
We'll see, But I just try not to lose.
Sight that the world is not as mean and bad as red state lawmakers make it seem. And the world is not red states in the United States, like, right, I know, when you're under persecution, when you're being targeted by these lawmakers, that's your whole world. I understand how it is to be oppressed in margined and that does become your whole world. And I feel that way a lot too, But I just try to remember to pan out and remember that this is a temporary.
One of the things I'm struck by is that these
are not red states, right. These are red states with enormous blue cities of people who cannot afford to move their whole lives, right, I mean, and it's not fair to ask them to because they are as much citizens of the state as anyone tell me about what is happening in your state, what we're seeing more and more, And you know, I interviewed someone today who was talking about this is that none of this is popular, right, I mean, it's not like most people who don't watch
Fox News do not give a shit about what gender people want to be. They don't care. This is not effective, you know, It's effective in a very small group of very angry people. So I'm curious to know. Do you feel that there's a ground swell where you are? Do you see a pushback? And I maybe you can relate this to what happened with Row.
Yes, I do, absolutely.
I mean what happened in Nebraska last week We passed LB five seventy four, which is a band that it's a bill that bans healthcare for trans kids, but then they amended an abortion ban into it. And that is all the uniqus that for Bodle, the autonomy is affecting us all. It's not that abortion is just a women's issue. It's not that trans rights is just a trans issue. All of these things speak to each other in terms of the autonomy and the control that we get to have over our.
Own bodies and our own families.
And these are.
Extremely unpopular policies in Nebraska. We've been filibus during the legislature for thirteen weeks just to make it hurt, just to make our colleagues understand that when you come for our rights, it's not going to be fun or easy for you. Even if you win, it's going to hurt so much and be so excruciating that you hate single day or at work. And you know when they have the votes to get their way, They're going to get their way, but we are not letting them get away with anything else.
And that Nebraskans don't like that.
I mean they see what's happening in thelature and they go, Okay, Conservatives, we want tax cuts, and we want lower property taxes, and we want a better football team. Like, can you guys just you know, stop discriminating against people so we can get back to work, right how most Nebraskans feel.
So I am eager for this upcoming election season. We are ready to turn people out, We are ready to recruit candidates, and we are ready to change this state by just flipping a couple of seats to someone who's fucking normal. Doesn't he have to be like liberal hero? It's like, does someone's fucking Republican dad just want.
To commit here and say I don't hate gay people? Like that's all.
I should laugh. That's normal normal.
I mean, that's that's the true.
I mean, that's the thing is always when I talk to these like never Trump conservatives and like, you know, you guys weren't that great, but like you'd be great now, and I me and you know they're gay they're normal, they're just whatever. They just don't hate people. Well, they do hate people, but not quite the same way.
I remember when I thought Mitt Romney being president would be like the worst thing to ever happen to this country, and just like longing for those days.
I think about that, by the way, all the time I think about like, I get into this, but I want to ask you one last question. You are no longer a Democrat, will you explain to us what you did there and why you did it?
Yeah, so we have a So I left the Democratic Party in I guess like mid April, so a little over a month ago. And the reason is we have attracted a lot of national attention in Nebraska for the way we have been fighting against these anti family, anti woman, anti gay, bigoted bills that Republicans have introduced, and Democrats on the national level started fundraising off of it.
I'm sorry I should laugh because it's so fucked up, but it is very fucked up.
Let me tell you why it's fucked up.
Yeah, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, the National Democratic Party has never invested a penny in Democratic candidate in Nebraska legislature.
Because they write us off.
They don't think they can win.
That's not an exaggeration. We've gotten zero dollars and zero cents from national Now we're their favorite.
Now they think the last.
And for that matter, I also don't like going on MSNBC or whatever like now they all want to have us on and then they're like, oh, this Democratic angel is taking out the Republican trash, and it's like, don't use my name for this binary like their good, we're bad type of rhetoric. Because in Nebraska we have a nonpartisan and I'm very proud of that and I'm very
protective of that tradition. Now, if I lived in California or New York, or Illinois, or Iowa or South Dakota anywhere else, it would not be productive to my goals to leave the Democratic Party. Right because of the situation we have in Nebraska, I can be a progressive independent and achieve more than I could if I was tied to a party.
So that is my goal.
Yeah, fuck yeah, man, that's what we're doing here. I appreciate you so much. I am just in awe of your courage and also more importantly, you're doing the real work out there in the red states and like, you know, I just want you to know that I am. I really respect you, Mollie.
Thank you so much.
I think you're so cool and I'm so excited we got to talk. I've been puting on Twitter for years and years.
No moment, Jesse Cannon, Molly dunk Fast. We've long known and heard that this Rond De Santis fellow would be running against Trump, but it seems like it's about to come tomorrow.
I mean, you know what I love about this is that it is so online. It's like I don't even know.
It's like this presidential GOP primary is going to completely exist on Twitter. Elon Musk perhaps you know him not from being just a centrist, except he's like a full on fascist. But whatever, that guy he has been a big, big Ron De Santis fan because Ron DeSantis does trump Ism without the flair. And now he is going to help Ron DeSantis, or as we like to call him, Florida's favorite fascist, announce his presidential run. But let me
just say this one thing. In a normal world where America was sliding into fascism, Donald Trump would say, Okay, this guy's a much better hope for bringing fascism to America I will go and stay in pomp Beach and play golf. But this is not a normal world. This is Trump world, and so expect the stupidest presidential primary, as stupid as you imagine it to be, this will be ten million times stupider. Okay, the pudding Finger story,
this is just the beginning of the stupid. The stupid you will absorb and be subjected to will be so stupid that we will need we'll need to read so many books to recover even a single brain cell. And for that, Ron DeSantis and Elon Musk fighting on Twitter with Eric and Junior is our moment of fuckery. 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.