James Carville, Rep. Peter Welch & David Roberts

tell us about what's going on up in Vermont. Then we'll talk to David Roberts, who writes the sub stec Volts, which covers clean energy and politics, and he's going to tell us about what he's been seeing on the climate change front lately. But first we have legendary Democratic strategist James Carville. Welcome to Fast Politics. James Carville. Oh well, thank you be Unfast Politics, FO. I actually kind of wish with these mid terms that the politics were a

little slower. This is not your first, nor your second, nor your third nor your fourth mid term. I mean, what are you seeing here? I think the Republicans have nomen needed an unusual slate of towns. I don't know, just weird, okay, just and who say that the weirdest things? The guy in New Hampshire says that you should leave remben, should leave the health decisions to Republican gentlemen. I don't even mention Blake Masters in his opposition to our insry

in World War Two. I mean, we haven't even gotten to think about herschel Walker or jd Vance in his foundation. It never never pinted anybody. It's just doctor Dodds, the dog killer. I don't know, it's I've never seen a political party just turned into a coat as fast as a model of focus. It's just I've just never seen I don't think anybody else that. Do you think, I mean herschel Walker. He's got the one abortion. Supposedly there's

more that people haven't been able to track down. Then he said, but even just the way he handled that one abortion, Okay, that's I thought on the first one, the first one we found about. Yeah, I thought he acted up kind of. I mean, it would have been much worse if he did not acknowledge that, the fact that he sent to seven art dollars nod. Well, I can forgive that. And I grew up thinking of people best forgiveness sense the way it is right, that's you know. Now he held a gun to one of his kid's

mother's head. He tried to show the other one that's that's kind of hard of you. That guy has three of children that he paid no attention to. That with the woman with the abortions, he said he didn't know her, and then it turned out he had a child with her, didn't now the great moral of the great moral roughlye in the sky new gang which comes in away in were you rest in a new fucking gangwich out there?

So gang it says, because he sct in mental illness, that means him that make him those consequential United States senator of this center. Wait just wait a god damn man. So you have a guy on a ledge of building York City, sudden negotiator, you know, the trained expert though he said, you don't want to jump off that ledge. It's not a smart move. And the guy says, look, I know I can fly. I see faces that you can't fly, sir, is not the right move. I don't

have any life? It off this ledge. No, you don't. You do have a life. We're gonna make you a United States senator. But sensus made because he has because he has severe mental illness, and he's had you know, he's concussed on a hundred different occasions that he would make a great SEVENCE. No, he needs medication, he needs community support. I think I think on the Obamacare Medicare, you can actually get reimbursed for mental health. He needs

a fucking doctor. He doesn't need a Senate seat. I mean, what I love about this Republican Party is they have no policy. So he was like saying that people that are a lot of Nicholao people in the country, and maybe herschel can representative level saying that's a very unique campaign strategy. I would have to say, but I guess that when not talking to get down to that, get down to that. I've read a lot of reporting and think pieces and I might work on one today about

this idea that this is the chaos mid terms. But are they really the gast mid terms or is it really I mean, what do you see as the factors in play here other than the fact that I don't know five six out have to take a hardcount of their Senate nominees are in my are legitimately nuts. That makes it unique. I mean, I don't know where have you ever fielded a party fielded a slate in major races of disquality. I mean, that's what that's the thing that makes it. And of course, but what also is

that you know, now you have the role question all this. Yes, they on television, I mean I got and I meanness that the Leto and Gorsage and all of them are like, don't worry about the women. They all got gassed up right after after road. But they'll forget about it. They don't have any attention span. They'll go back to moving first. And you know that's what they say. And you know, and some of other people are saying some of the

energy post row energies starting to dissipate. Well, if you know people don't have that much interest in their lives and their futures, you know, it's so much kind of come back in and say, you got the way that we went this. It's normally about fifty people that vote for female but we got to get that number of fifty fifty five and somebody and you know these some somebody's female voters have got to take their battles in their own hands and go out vote, volunteer, drag their

friends out. That's even gonna save it from all of this. But that's their bat that that they you know, the guy new has said, leave it to leave these decisions. These Republican generlemen, they know us what to do to weamen. The thing that I'm struck by is there's so much talk that voters trust Republicans on the economy, but there's quite a lot of evidence that Republicans don't necessarily have any kind of any kind of economic you know, policy.

I mean, is that a failure on the part of Democrats. A friend of mine, but certainly Kylie, knowing Alan Blond was to think the second guide said, at one time there's a professor Preston read a book on the economic performance under Republican Democratic presidents and the title of book is it's not even close. I don't know why anyone would ever think that Republicans about Democrats, but you know, they see it, they see us in there. That's probably

in arguable not gonna change your mind during that election day. Yeah, I mean, what do you think about the gamble that Democrats have done, which I actually think is not great of of sort of supporting the worst candidates and some of these I think it's more or ethical, brilliant I would have done exactly the same thing. Okay, so explain. So like, for example, Carry Lake, who is really quite anti democracy, is now polling pretty well. I mean, are

you of course, I'm worried about it. But but if Carry Lake beat you, didn't whoever else was able to beat you worst? And if a campaign does whatever it thinks it needs to do to put itself in the best position to win. Now, somebody called me to day and said that they had a debate with Hobbs and Lake, and I guess Fox and that Major Garrett let Carry Lake just lie on every question. But what else is right?

You know? And I do think, if you know, a different Republican might have a better chance against Marl Kelly than Blake Best. Yeah, I mean, if they win, they didn't. There were you know, people voted for, but the Democrats had to do what they had to do to get the best possible counidate. Did the same thing in Maryland, didn't Ilinoia in western Michigan. You know, I wish our candidates would do and a little better in Pennsylvania Wisconsin. But I think we're there close to both of them.

I feel like I'm a little more worried about Wisconsin than Pennsylvania. Like it seems like in Pennsylvania Fetterman is I think doing as well. You know, I think he has a real movement, and and Shupiero too. But in Wisconsin it feels like there's a sense in which it's just the It feels like the Republicans have spent a lot of money on ads and now Ron Johnson is pulling about even with Mandela Barnes. In Pennsylvania, Federment is like up to is probably down one. The difference is

that Avers is probably up one and Shapiro is up tim. Right, there's gonna be some drag up the governments race, but you know, we could run on both. I think the Gavin Newsom does this, and of course the Abbott, the Santis. The politics have become stunts, right right, And it's all there's some stunt to make fun of eyes, which I like, and it's always fun to make fund of eyes because it's such a conceptible human being entertained value. But I don't know how much that ship dries bogus? Do You

don't think so? No? I think it just looks like a stunt, because that's what it is. If you haven't seen that John Olliver, doctor ospiece. No, I don't know how to go. I don't know how docs gets up in the morning. There's the most devastating thing I'm saying my life. What do you think Democrats should be do

when you get people out to vote? Because this is we are like in the runoff now and particularly young people, and that is I don't have I don't have a great answer, but I am I am told constantly that you know, there's not a lot of disengaged on the thirty five and disengaged and you know, if I'm the thirty five and I'll see what's going on in this climate. I see the way that the level of the misogyny of the other side. You know, at some point young

people got to get involved themselves. It's that country. It's that's huge. I think you look this ship not want to be involved, right It's an issue. I mean, what do you think is going on with Gavin Newsom right now and the mastic he's gonna want to run for president and say putting billboards up in Florida because that you know, that's our word, that that they like to

own the lives. We like to own Fox or something, And I just think that kind of politics, you know, it's fun, but it's not sustainable over a long period of time. A lot of us are really tired and just would like American politics to uh, you know, listen to the Republican Party did a lot of bad stuff, but they used to not be quite so unhinged. I mean, do you see a world where things go back to you know that there we sort of see a more of a Mit Romney or someone just a little less insane.

Well what did you just say? What? What? What name did you just get out of your mouth? It's got a little lesson No, no, no, no, no, no, are you kidding? It just got substantially crazier since yeah, no, it's not gonna get any better. Just don't get worse. Hers Walker is the fusion. So play along with me here fast forward. I mean, what does look like how I'm just trying to get through two? Molly Jesus Grice, you could lose the House and the Senate. Nothing think

about that. Even there's so many unknowns about four. We just was so not enough to say anything honestly, right, if you're listening to this right now and you're like my husband, who's our target listener? What are the races that you think people who are listening to this should give money to get involved, and that you feel like you're close enough that could make a difference. So the one thing I know is that it direct to the candidate is the most efficient use of money. Yes, definitely,

But also in certain places where you have multiple races. Arizona, Nevada, well that a little bit different. I wouldn't the d s A is the Democratic Socialists took over the Democratic Party, so I definitely would not send them money. I would send it right to Master's Easley in North Carolina for sure. Really, do you think there's a chance Democrats win that? No worse than you probably not. For sure. Wisconsin, you mean you got to send it race the governor's race Wisconsin

Democratic Party is particularly good. That's Ben Winkler. So if I were doing the Democratic Party stuff, I think of Wisconsin's everything. In North Carolina too, because you don't have a governor's race, but you got these racists for the Supreme Court is just staggerantly critical. That would be the probably my number one target's I think fement. I think plenty money in Pennsylvania. But because to say not there, uh, but that would be that, that would be I think

you do the most good. Oh that's really staying and important. I'd say nos Todd in the VATA top of the pack and order in the Wisconsin Democratic Party. But in these last couple of weeks, what do you think, like if you could give sort of Biden a message of what he should be doing. I mean, do you think, like, is there anything he could do that could energize young voters to get them turned down? It's not the young vote he's letting people actually went to jail from me, right,

I don't know, but that helps. He's like none, He's tried to help him on his student loans. I don't know how much it helps. You know, you had Supreme Court and he's reprobably gonna selling young people we're gonna were gonna have the main over your body for the rest of your life. I wish I had an answer, but a disengage young person. We have to get sider possible that person may just be a food yeah. Right, So the most important midium election of our lifetime, it

always is. Sometimes they've broken clock is right twice a day. Might be right, just tire, we stand, we can we know how we stand on the precedents. Peter Welch represents Vermont's sole congressional district and is the Democratic nominee for Senate in the state. Welcome to Fast Politics, Peter Welch, Good to be with you. You are not yet a Vermont Senator, but the seat you're running for is a D plus. Well it's deep plus. I mean we voted

as seven thirty for Biden over Trump. You know, we've got Chris Patrick Leahy, who has been a revered senator for Vermont for forty eight years. And of course Bernie Sanders is our other senator and he's revered, so we had him last week. We're doing like a good sort of Vermont Senate kick, which I think, you know, not many podcasts can say. Well, that's great. The big joy in my job. I've started in the House for sixteen years, but I worked with Bernie and Patrick for the past

sixteen years. And there's only three of us in one of the six states now that only has one member of the House. So we you know, it means we a half to work together. And the good news is we like to work together. And I've supported Bernie and his two presidential campaigns and Patrick, and when he first ran for the US Senate nineteen seventy four, I was a volunteer on his campaign. So all of us have

been friends for decades. That is so interesting. And you were also the president of the Vermont Senate, right, that's right. I served in the state Senate in the nineteen eighties, and I was the first Democrat actually in the history of the state the service the Senate president. And that's the that's the leader of the Senate. And I was elected unanimously with Democrats and Republicans. And then I ran for governor in nineteen ninety and I lost. And I

was out of politics for eleven years. And when I was reappointed to the Senate, I was appointed to the Senate again. I was gone so long that my colleagues have forgotten why they were mad at me. And they realized they elected me to be Senate president. Yet, so why were they mad at you? You know, if you're the leader of the Senate, you're always in a position to disappoint people. You know, I'm overstating a little bit,

but in fact, as a Senate leader, a legislative leader. Uh, you really have a major responsibility to try to bring people together. And that means you can't give everybody what they want because there's there's conflicts there and your your goal is to help resolve them. And obviously that's a

major requirement of being a good legislator. How do you advance the principles that you are in support of the positions that you think are really really important, but to that in a legislative body where there's a lot of different points of view, and uh, you know, that's an aptitude the skill I think in this position that I have that I've shown in Congress and also in the

State Senate. But you know, we really need, I think, in Washington more of the Vermont way if we're going to start making progress on what is really a toxic political situation in DC right now. Wait, so, will you

tell me why they were mad at you? Though? I mean, I'm sure it's hilarious now thirty years later or twenty years later, you know, it could be everything from that I didn't put a bill that say a senator wanted on the floor the day that she or he wanted it, or I didn't assign them to a committee they wanted, or I didn't make them the chair of the committee they wanted. Because all those things that in the moment

seem of great importance, but in retrospect really aren't. You know, what's really important is that you stick to your values. And uh, you know, from we're proud that we were the first state to pass civil unions, in the first state that legislated gay marriage, and uh, we've been working hard in a single payer here in the state of Remont. We've had in the legislature. These are all things that I worked on throughout my political career, first in the

state senator of course, now in Washington. But the big challenge for us right now, I mean, there's just no getting around this democracies under assault. January six showed that the shocking violence was terrible in the image of that we're shocking. But after that happened at three in the morning, when we returned, I was really upset and said that a hundred and forty seven of my Republican colleagues voted

against the peaceful transfer of power. They were refusing to validate the election of Joe Biden, who of course won the election by seven million votes. And that is of enormous threat to the well being of this country. And in Vermont, I just feel so proud of how strong our commitment is to the democratic tradition of the peaceful transfer of power. And that's very much I think on

the agenda in this election. We've got to save our democracy. Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that because Mont is this very blue, but very rural state, and I'm curious, why do you think it's so different than other states that are very rural that are largely read. What I think is this, we have got a traditional town meetings and that form of government, local government actually survives to

this day. And when you're in a small town and I lived in a small town and you have fierce debates about save the school budgets, something is very important to everyone for what the school policies are, and you

have these fierce debates with your neighbors. And this is an example that happened to me, and UH is somebody are in disagreement with a few months later they're coaching your son or daughter and literally and you then get along and you understand that the folks that you disagree with have the same desire to make your town a good town, to make your school a good school. And I think it's really developed a kind of created a sense of of of community that helps us get through

some political differences. And there's a lot of respect in common for people who listen more than they talk. And I think this traditionally local government we've had has been very very important. Also, the Republicans we've had in the state have tended to be the old style Republicans. They were fistically conservative, they like low taxes and less government, but they were socially liberal and tolerant and also had

a concern for the environment. That's different than some of what the Republican parties, certainly than the Trump Republican Party, that's for sure. So there's been kind of a shared a sense of responsibility here. That personal responsibility includes putting some time and energy into building a local institution, and it might be the local fire department, a small community bank, the school board, but where there's an understanding that we have to work together and we're all in it together.

That bond has been freed obviously in d C. Yeah, I'm curious about that. Do you think there's a way to sort of Vermont up politics on the federal level. Well, we have to, that's my view, because the way it is in Washington, especially, you know, with the ascendants of Trump and then his grip on the Republican Party, where he's transformed it into ineffect occult that basically does what he wants. The best example of that was the hundred and forty seven Republican members who voted for the first

time against the peaceful transfer of power. And we've got a hundred candidates around the country for governor, for U. S. Senate, for Congress, for Secretary of State who are advocating to stop the steal movement of Trump. But you know, the democratic principles that guide us and I think are still embedded very much in Vermont. We need in Washington. You

listen more than you talk. You have fierce debates, but just with some mutual respect, you understand that government has to be about serving all the people, especially working people. We need that. Senator Lahy, Senator sanators have worked very hard in the way they present themselves and the issues they advocate for, in the principles they stand for, and I hope I can be considered to have done the

same thing. And my job as a US representative, and I certainly hope to do that as the U. S. Senator. We had Bernie on and he talked a lot about single payer and single payer or you know, a kind of healthcare, a sort of expanded Obamacare Medicare. It's wildly popular, and it's especially popular with young people. Do you think there are ways to sort of get things ahead if you are elected to the Senate in January, I mean

in November, but then put it in January. Do you think that there are like things you can do to sort of move ahead the healthcare debate? Well, I do, and we have to. I mean, here's what's happening with healthcare. It's almost like a hazing for young people when they first have to get their own healthcare. You know, we made progress when younger people could stay on their parent policies until age, but then it is impossible to figure out how to get healthcare and how and it's not affordable.

And the biggest challenge we face is how expensive it is. And you know, the whole point of single pair, which I've long supported, is the notion that you're saying that we've got to have a rational system where everybody is going to participate in the outcome of a fair financing system and a delivery system that really is seamless, you know. And right now, anybody who has to get in the healthcare system, they can go broke really quickly. The cost

of healthcare. I'll take prescription drugs for an example. They just go up and up and up, way beyond inflation, and it's putting access to healthcare out of reach even for people with insurance because the premiums just keep spiking

and spiking. So the whole notion of single pair is trying to get your arms around the cost so that you can have access and that also you don't have to be suffering under a bureaucratic regime where your doctors are constantly hassled when they're trying to make decisions about how best to manage your care. So I think we have to the focus I think has to be a

lot on the cost. I was really happy to be the sponsor of the prescription drug price negotiation legislation in the House along with my my former colleague, the great Elijah Cummings, who, as you know, passed away a few years ago. But that's the first time we were able to stand up to the pricing power of big pharma, and we're going to be able to bring the cost just as an example of insulin from like three hundred bucks a month down to thirty five bucks a month

for folks on Medicare. But you know, young people are coming into a world where the cost of healthcare is going to be out of reach for their employers, for them if they have to get their own policy. So we have got to keep up the pressure. And we had a big victory this year with price negotiation, so I want to keep that up and work with Bernie and others. The insulin this is like one of the two things Chuck Shumer told me that he was going to try to bring up before the mid terms. And

um also the codifying same sex marriage. Oberfeld, are you surprised, I mean, you've been in Congress a long time, so you existed pre Trump in the world where Republicans. You're from the North, where Susan Collins comes from. Are you surprised that these Republicans are just terrified to support nonpartisan bells like this or I am you know, because a lot of these things, when you really break them down, they're good for the people that live in a red

district or live in a blue district. I mean, whether you voted for Trump, you voted for Biden. If you're dependent on insulin, is so many millions of Americans are, and you're getting ripped off. You know, insulin cost about ken bucks to manufacture, and many of these farmer companies charged like three hundred bucks. The rip off is a

rip off. And uh, it just is upsetting to me that we can't come together as members of Congress and realize that, hey, if we do something that makes insulin affordable for the people we represent, that's a good thing and we don't have to be arguing about a lot of other things. Let's get that done for the people that are really suffering under these rip off prices. So and take another example of infrastructure. You know, we get safer roads and bridges, we get mass transit that works.

There's a lot of folks that benefit by that throughout America, in red states and in blue states. There's such a cult around Trump that it gets in the way of helping a lot of the folks have voted for Trump. Yeah, no, I mean that's the disconnect there. And I do think though, and Bernie and I talked about this too. It is like a failure on the part of the Democratic Party

that they can't explain. I mean, of course, obviously there are many other factors here, and I'm not throwing Democrats on the bus, but I'm just saying it does seem like Democrats should be able to explain, like we want to give you thirty five dollar insulin, they want give tax cuts to corporations, like I mean, do you think that fundamentally it's a sort of inability to connect with these voters. Well, clearly. I mean Trump has a kind

of feral instinct for getting people riled up. He, as you know, is a real divisive figure and he's he's good at dividing people. And for many folks that Trump's uh, the arguments that we may make about saying insulin, you know, it's not just what Democrats do. It's really about what's happening in our society. And I think Trump obviously is

a manifestation of that. But look at how social media has helped create an environment where people believe these crazy conspiracy theories that pop up literally every single day, And of course Trump is writing on that. You know, he's now starting to align himself with a lot of the Q and on conspiracies. So when you're in that world where people believe conspiracies and they're very powerful, and they

get ampfied with social media, the facts don't matter. It's just you're on one side or you're on the other. But you know, it's why I do think that an approach where you're reaching out on practical common ground. You know, I mentioned the Vermont Way a little bit earlier, but let me give an example. It's a very prosaic example. Um, the FDA years ago came out suddenly with this regulation that cheesemakers couldn't age their cheese on wood boards. That

would have been devastating in Vermont. We have some great Yeah, there was a facility in upstate New Yark. It was contaminated and the f d A incorrectly attributed to the wood boards when it was in fact just really bad sanitation practices all around. Well, this is gonna put a lot of cheesemakers in Vermont out of work. And a cheesemaker came into my office, a great cheese company, Jasper Hill Cheese Award winning cheese, and said, hey, we're going out of business. How do I fix this? Well, you

know who else has got a lot of cheese? Paul Ryan and Wisconsin. So I got down to Ryan, and you know, I knew him from being around and we totally disagreeentious about everything, but we're cordial. And I said, Paul, we got us a cheese problem. And he was all ears at that point because of course he wants to help Wisconsin cheese and it would have been really bad

for them. So we got together and contacted the FDA and the fact that you had he was then the chair of the Budget Committee, Republican and me a Democrat, and we're calling together and made it very clear this was not gonna be anything acceptable to members of Congress. We're able to get that regulation that would have been devastating to cheesemakers in Wisconsin and cheesemakers and Vermont. We

got it, We got rid of it. And you know, it was a way of working together where the starting point was not arguing ideology, it was talking about practical needs that people in Wisconsin and Vermont chair, you know, reasonable rules so cheesemakers could thrive. But that's a kind of approach that is almost to be an attacked. It's like you have to take a pledge of allegiance if you're a Republican candidate now that you agree that Donald

Trump's selection was stolen. I mean, if that's the starting point, you're not gonna make any progress on that. And it really gets in the way of us using the political system as it's supposed to be used, and that's to help us as a society with lots of conflicts. You know, how do we solve climate change, big debate, how do we get affordable healthcare? Big debate, how do we get

workforce training? Big debate from making any progress. And then, by the way, on top of that, you've got a Supreme Court that's you know, lock Stock and Barrel influenced by the Republican the right wing of the Republican Party with that extreme conservative majority, that is starting to go after fundamental rights that people have enjoyed in this country.

And of course the Job's decision is most significant where it's the first time I can think of where the United States Supreme Court has taken a right away as opposed to expanded access to a right for Americans. So we've got to really deal with that and restore Jesse and I were actually talking about this. One of the things that because you're a very rural state, you guys are have a pretty loose I don't want to say loose.

A lot of gun rights owners who are very pro the rights of bear arms talk to us about the guns. You're right, we've been very fortunate and ver Mint, I mean, we have not had gun violence. That's starting to change, okay, But we had a rural tradition where owning guns and gun use was really about hunting, it was about target shooting. It was about families going to deer camp and teaching their kids safe use of firearms and being out in

the woods and being in nature. And we fortunately again this is starting to change, really have very very little gun violence. That's starting to change. And of course the n r A in the old days was an organization like locally in Vermont where they taught gun safety, you know, the n r A under Winning Lapierre UH is all about supporting gun manufacturers and assault assault weapons sales. So

it's starting to change. And in fact, we went from being a state that had no gun safety laws at all to passing laws that are requiring a background check UH in our Republican governor who had a a rating from the n r A among others, supported that gun legislation, and that happened. You know, right after park Land, we had a school here in Vermont where there was a threat by a former student to take a rifle assault weapon and come to a school and get the biggest

body count. Yeah, and that was really shocking. It was stopped because the police found out about it. They went to his house. W was out target shooting, but it was. It was a near incident of catastrophic consequences and it really shook us up here. And we can move towards passing some kind of safety laws. Yeah, so interesting. Thank you so much for joining us. Peter Wolch, thank you very much. It's really nice to be with you. And keep up your good work. Dad Roberts, writes the newsletter

and host the podcast Volts. Welcome to Fast Politics. Fancy your podcast. Congratulations, Thank you very much, very excited to have you here. The first of many segments. I hope with you because you are so needed in this brave new world. First, I want to talk to you about it does seem like the Biden administration is way more interested in climate than any administration we've ever had, for

whatever that's worth. Yeah, I think the right way to say that is that the activist and advocate effort to push climate to the top of the democratic agenda succeeded. I don't think this is coming from Biden's part particularly. I think he's just he's legendarily reads the room and reads the party and tries to place himself in kind of the center of it. And this is what he

sees now when he looks out at the party. So yeah, I think that's really an important I mean, we're taping this on the day that Biden just pardoned a lot of people who were in jail from marijuana crimes. Which it's hard to imagine that someone who's seventy nine has decided that's like the where it's at. But clearly, I think one of the really good things about Biden is that they're reactive and they listen to what the people want. Yeah.

I mean, let's let's just pause and note that the world is choka block with old white men who refused to change the way they think based on when they hear young people saying so, I mean, honest to God, to find an old white guy who's like, who's willing to listen and change and go with the you know, go with the currents. That's a remarkable thing. Yeah, I mean, I think it's amazing and he should be given a

lot of credib for that. I want to start by talking about the hurricane, and then there are many hurricane questions I have. So the first is the thinking here is this is definitive proof that climate change. I mean, not that we need it anymore. But what do you say to that? I mean, no, no single hurricane is

going to prove or disproved climate change. I think. I mean, ten years ago, there's a big a lot of arguments in the press and in scientific circles about whether you could attribute a specific event to climate change, whether you could say this event was caused by or made more likely by climate change. Since then, the science of attribution, as it's called, has advanced a lot, and now yes, scientists are quite confident saying, you know, this climate change

made this you know whatever more likely more likely. So at this point I think we should sort of move past this, like, is this storm climate change? Is that storm climate change? Like it's all, it's all climate change, It's all it is the new climate you know, like get used to it. Like whether whether a particular one is is mechanically traceable to particular climate changes, I think is largely academic at this point, right, right, But it does seem like this is the worst one in how

many years? I mean, just talk to us about this sort of math of it. Well, they're getting more severe because of warming. You know, hurricanes gain strength when they when they pass over warm waters, and a warming atmosphere means more warm waters, so we get more intense storms, so you know, and like in Florida in particular, I mean, it has bad storms already, It has flooding problems already, it has sea level rise problems already, all of that

even before you think about, uh, climate change. So you know, like you could say this should be the storm that should wake Florida up, but you really, they should have been awake a long time ago. And they keep alleging Republicans so obviously they're not. Climate change is not high on their mind. Yeah, I mean, I guess it's not

a not a priority. And there used to be this sort of sentiment that enough bad enough disasters would change people's minds, right, Like, disasters got bad enough, people would wake up to climate change. But I think one thing we've we've learned in the past, however many years, is that when people are embedded in a worldview, events don't don't don't change them. They just integrate that into the

world view. So so you know, there's no there's been quite a few studies of this at this point, there's no real evidence that storms change the broad polities views on climate change. Yeah, so it's sort of a fun nothing matters, and we're all going to die. Where are you and I get together and we get depressed, let's

not get to press. We're gonna be happy while we die, don't we feel like this interesting thing of that, how the zoomers are shaming the celebrities with their jets as one of the more interesting trajectories though, of that, the thing of a single zoomer shaming a single celebrity is such crack rock to sort of celebrity journalism that that I'm weary about just this this one or two things getting way over hyped. Like if you're if you're a celebrity and you have private jets, are you really losing

a lot of sleep thinking about that? Like, I don't know, I would argue that I think Taylor Swift is running scared from it. I mean, but it's also it was never a thing that even existed three years ago. I mean, it's like a new destructive trend. I'm not sure. I mean I feel like the math on it won't you know, it's at best a slide show. The voluntary non private flying by concerned celebrities. It's such a silly I mean,

this is the kind of thing the media loves. But like in terms of greenhouse gases, what I would like to see is some celebrities come out and be pro trained. Let's get some Let's get a train network, train network, be positive. I'd love to talk to you about trains, because that wasn't early you know, Biden love trains. I mean, I don't know where we are with that rather. Yeah, so I mean there definitely are some you know, and

the idea of a high speed train. We have to wonder, like how much of that has been derailed by these sort of like Elon mush is going to build a hyper loop, which is like a tunnel. I mean, there's certainly has been like a fair amount of like monorail

guy happening with our train planning. Yeah. One of the weird twists are darkest timeline has taken lately, is all of a sudden, all these tech bros coming out against public transit in favor of these ludicrous goofball schemes like um, like the tunnel or the little flying the little flying cards, a little quad cots or whatever. That's another dystopia that's headed our way rapidly. Yeah. I did really did not see that coming. It's just one more disappointment from the

tech bro sector after a long series. Yeah. You know, it's so interesting because you know, I'm married to a venture capitalist and he's always like, you know, we're going to figure and he's a good one. I mean he works in education. It's different, but he still is like commerce can fix this and that. And I'm like, honey, I'm like, you know, I was scared enough about getting hit by a car. Now there's like the added anxiety

of getting hit by a plane. This is what I don't get about that about that mentality is sort of like man will overcome, the market will figure this out. All. One thing we've learned about clean energy, and specifically about greenhouse gasses, is that it's really all about infrastructure. Infrastructure shapes what markets exist in, what markets can exist, They shape what options you have, and and infrastructure is not something that private markets build. So I mean the involvement

of public policy. And this is so clear to everyone who has thought about it for more than five minutes. It's very frustrating to sort of stumble upon this sort of old like, oh, you know, clever people will figure that out. It's true, clever people are figuring out a lot of cool things, like they're they're hard at work. Market is doing great things, but ultimately it comes back to infrastructure and public policy that shapes all the possibilities

of what markets can and can do. Government is providing subsidies for a whole lot of shitty crap like coal. Indeed, and if you want to be positive, you don't want us to be to get each other depressed. We could talk about just the sort of extraordinary renaissance of federal climate policy that we're living through right now, which is going to invest billions, hundreds of billions of dollars in the right things. Finally, there's plenty of reasons for for positivity.

Talk to me about California. I'm so curious. I mean, we certainly are seeing a lot of a lot of states, or at least California and Texas, which are both having problems with their grids for different reasons. It's complicated, there's lots of different problems you can have. I mean, California is having a problem that lots of grids have a similar problem ironically to Puerto Rico's grid, which is a lot of very long distance power lines that were put in a long long time ago and have not been

well maintained or monitored. Because this is just a slightly geeky side note, the structure of utilities is they make a return when they invest in new stuff, new infrastructure, new build. They do not get a rate of return on money they spend on maintenance. So that's just like it's inevitable that that sits down through the corporate culture and at every level people are going to favor the

new thing over maintenance. And so you get what you have in California, which is just hundreds of thousands of miles of lines that have not been they were built in like the twenties or the forties or the fifties and are literally like their metal parts have begun to like where through and they're just falling apart. And every time what that happens, there's a fire. So that's a problem in California. Texas has its own problem in that it refuses to hook itself up to the larger national grid,

so it's stranded. It's basically an island. It might it operates as though it were a large island, which is fine. It's from big island. It's got a lot of power. But like if there's a crunch on natural gas, if natural gas supplies you know, get super expensive like they have recently, or if or if supplies freeze up in a in a cold snap like they did a few years ago, you can't bring in power from outside your states.

So you're just kind of stuck. And of course, if you're in Texas, which is extremely rid politically, you can't tell Texans the truth about what's opening. You can't ask them to conserve because God knows, that's Marxism, you know, you can't. You can't tell them we need to hook

up to the outside grid because that's mark Marxism. You can't say, you know, we need distributed rooftop solar in batteries so you can have more resilience and and last through these blackouts at least in a healthier way, because that is also Marxism. So they're trapped in a cage of their own making. Yeah, I mean, they want this sort of independence that they don't have. Right. There is no coherent positive argument for independence for your electricity grid.

It make it just makes no sense, like cooking. The larger an area a grid covers, the more reliable it is, the cheaper the power is, the cleaner the power is. There's just the only reason they do it is to avoid federal jurisdiction. Is to avoid for having jurisdiction over over their lines, which is just pure cussid idiot stubbornness that is doing nothing but hurting them. We're seeing as we get these extreme temperatures, and we won't see it

now until the winter. But my dad lives in Palm Springs, so we know a lot about this. That the grids can't actually handle the demand. Well, there's a lot of different pieces going there. I mean, the grid can handle the demand if demand is properly managed, and if the grid itself is properly managed. A dilapidated, falling apart, poorly understood poorly maintained grid can't handle demand. But there's no there's no technological limitation here. This is all just bad

practice and bad institutions and bad economic incentives here. There's no technological reason we couldn't have robust, healthy, clean grids. They have them in other places. It's interesting. So Connecticut as this new saying, which I'm sure Republicans will call CRT, but it's where they're teaching climate change in schools. I mean,

what are your thoughts on that. It's just one of these things that, like this debate only is even coherent in the context of American politics, like anywhere else, Like the most important change, what's happening, the most important thing

happening in the world. Should we tell kids about it? Yes, we should tell kids about the most important thing happening in the world, like climate change, and the fight against climate change is going to shape these children's entire lives and their children's lives, Like should we tell them about it?

It's just so, I mean, the idea that telling that instructing children about what's happening in the natural world in the course of teaching them science and you know, sociology and all the rest of it is somehow left wing is just like that's just to accept dumb terms of the debate, like our I used to accept that that premise, Like, if you're a reactionary and you want to maintain the cultural and political power of a narrow white Christian patriarchal

culture that is rooted in fossil fuels and suburbs and highways, Uh, then yes, you need to You need to keep your followers ignorant because once they learn what's happening, they'll learn that that's unsustainable. But that's not a left versus right thing. That's just a reality versus you know, cocoon thing. This is not even a this is not a political argument. It's just it's just America's reactionary tribes shrinking in and covering themselves with a blanket and trying to cover everyone

else too. It's the same on race, it's the same on history. It's the same on climate. It's the same argument over and over again. Is there anything really interesting that you're seeing that we should be talking about that's sort of fascinating. A couple of days ago, I thought this was a big news story that deserves more more hype. The inflation Reduction Act got lots of hype and got lots of cover which one it came out, but I still don't think it got enough. I don't think people

appreciate it well enough. A report from Credit Swiss, the big mega bank finance whatever their research arm, put out a report a few days ago that said, the Inflation Reduction Act is a much bigger deal than even Democrats are saying. Like these tax credits, for instance, the tax credits that that the bill offers, you know, for a whole wide array of of clean technologies are uncapped, which means the estimate that the bill is three eighty seven

I think was the final number. If you get the exact number seven billion dollars of spinning, that's just an estimate by the CBO of how many companies are going to take advantage of these credits. And what Credit Swiss is saying is no, these markets are growing much faster than that. Many more people are going to take advantage

of these credits than than the CBO has acknowledged. And actually the total ending of the bill is likely to be something more like eight hundred billion dollars more than twice.

This sort of headline, this sort of headline number, and that's just the tax credits, And that's not even figuring in the Green Bank, which is going to deploy a bunch of money and and and invigorate a bunch of private capital, the Loan Program Office, the Jigger Shahs running, which is back up and running now and and kick

starting all kinds of businesses. The parts about the federal government being required to buy clean and the federal government being required to zero out the carbon footprint of all its buildings by like, that's an enormous amount of capital that's going to have to be it mustard to do that. So I just think politics has become such a ridiculous circus. That's sort of like that just wandered past, and everybody's onto new things. But we really should like stop and

take note. It was a fundamental and enormous shift in climate policy that has happened, and we're going to live through a decade now of really rapid change and investment in the US. Like already there's all these announcements of all these companies that want to build factories in the US now because of you know, the bike clean and the domestic manufacturing requirements. They're building auto factories, battery factories. There's gonna be an enormous reindustrialization of the US in

the coming decade. It's just a really big deal, a really big victory for the left that it needs to. Like, I just wish it would spike the ball more. Yes, the left is very good at not spiking the ball. They hate being happy, Like it's one of the most insane things I've ever been through online, Like this thing passes and I go out on nine and I'm like, holy shit, guys, look this amazingly good thing happened. And

I got so much pushback. I felt like people on the left were groping, looking, searching for some reason not to be happy about it, And I'm like, why, why are you looking for a reason. There's so many real obvious reasons not to be happy, trying to make some up, Like well, I asked, so think people there's some anxiety about the Supreme Court for any number of reasons. I mean, that can tamp any good news down. Really, this was so interesting and I'm so I was thrilled to have you.

I hope you'll come back. And also trains trains, yea, yea for trains trains, Yeah, listen. I love trains, and there was a fast train. Can you imagine if they were like a train, I would take a ten hour train to Ally. Well, we don't even need a ten hour train to l A like we could. You know, you could build them a lot faster than that. I mean, there's I just watched the video online about Switzerland the trains in Switzerland, and basically Switzerland has experienced sprawl, right.

They have all these tiny little suburb like villages throughout the country, but instead of connecting it all by highways, they decided to connect it all by trains. So, no matter how tiny or little village, if you have a thousand people out in the middle of nowhere Switzerland, you have reliable, every thirty minute train service to all the reds of Switzerland at a nice train station every just so just imagine every US suburb having regular rapid train service,

two major metro areas nearby. Bomb shelter for every Swiss man, woman and child, but not but not for you and not us. Thank you so much, it was great. Yeah, thank you. Congrats on the new pod No Molly John Fast Jesse Cannon. I saw that the gop House judiciary did a really dumb tweet. The GOP judiciary is just Jim Jordan's own twitter is what I've heard. Again, it would be impossible to know for sure because no one

will ever give you a straight answer. But the tweet is at six oh five pm on October six, Kanye period elon period Trump period and I am sure that and Jim had his took his used his pudgy little fingers to tweet this out on his phone. He thought that he was just killing it and that Kanye Ellen and Trump three ps in a pod um. Again, Like the thing I'm so impressed by with this JUPI is like Kanye is in the middle of having what seems to be some kind of mental health episode can we

call it, and making anti Semitic remarks just mental illness. Well, it started with a speech at one of his fashion shows. It continued with a lot of odd instagrams and tweets, and a crescendoed with a tweet that Kanye wrote that said, I'm a bit sleepy tonight, but when I wake up, It's going to be death Con three. And then there's no punctuation because why would there be on Jewish people Jewish and people are capitalized. The funny thing is, I

actually can't be anti semita anti semitic. By the way, in case you're wondering, anytime you're saying, like I thought, I can't possibly be racist, I can't possibly be anti semitic, is never a grade time because black people are also to you. Also, all right, you guys have toyed with me and tried to black ball anyone who ever opposes

your agenda. Alright, So that was Kanye's foray into uh and let's not forget his best friend to Lan Elon, has has been spending his time tweeting his hot takes on international diplomacy and whether or not Ukraine should be given to Russia. He's back and forth. He's extremely concerned about nuclear proliferation recently, which is congratulations, Elon, you've made it to the nineteen sixties. Um. And Donald J. Trump,

of course needs no introduction. Well. I Trump had a really good one though this this weekend at the rally where he said that January six was the biggest crowd he's ever seen, which is right. I almost bragging about the crowd size at his insurrection. But it's a little weird because there's two thousand rioters at January six, yet he claimed there's a million and a half people at his inauguration, So which is it. I mean, I just think if you're bragging about an event that led to

an armed insurrection, perhaps you're picking the wrong horse. And for that all three get a hearty fuck you. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to your the best minds in politics makes sense of all this chaos. If you enjoyed what you've heard, please send it to a friend and keep the conversation going. And again, thanks for listening.