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 Bob Woodward says Trump is far worse than Richard Nixon, and he would know. We have such a great show for you today. The Nation's jeet here talks Donald Trump's continued to send into madness. Then we'll talk to author Jonathan Alter about his new book American Reckoning, inside Trump's trial and my own. But first the news.
So, Molly, last night, you and I were on stage doing our file Day of Politics as unusual, our little tour with Rick Wilson, and we missed out on mister Trump doing what I would call some demented behavior of us, swaying back and forth on stage. When I watched this last night, I literally just kept saying what the fuck very loudly through my house.
Trump told his supporters to go out and vote on January fifth. A few much.
I like it.
I like it then the election, but still a good call. I think Republicans should definitely go vote on January fifth. He rambled about the late great Hannibal Lecter, you may remember him. Then somebody fainted and another person fainted, so he stood frozen and silent on stage as music played for thirty seven minutes. Thirty seven minutes.
Listening to the Shrek soundtrack, at points.
His soundtrack, which included ave Maria a lot of good stuff in there, but also thirty seven minutes of standing on stage sort of voguing for the crowd.
I would call it a light sway sachet type thing.
A sort of be bomp okay, Yes, yes, imagine if a Democrat, imagine if Joe Biden did that. Yeah, they would be Molly Hemingway, the whole Federalist crew, the Wall Street Journal opinion page. They would be screaming from the rooftops.
Well, since he's really losing his mind today, he's at the Economic Club of Chicago and talking to Bloomberg editor in chief John Micklethwaite, Which, if I fucked that pronunciation up, I'll punch in later. What'd you see here? Today?
Molly Trump is focused on his economic agenda.
I'm sure he is.
Right, which includes whatever. So he has about two moves when it comes to economy. One is tariff's. He says that a ten percent tariff, which he has vowed to impose on all other countries importing the US is insufficient to bring jobs back to the country. For that outcome, you need tariffs of fifty percent. So fifty percent tariff will mean that what are you buying. You're buying a
thing of hangers. Right, your hangars will cost instead of costing five bucks for ten hangars, it will cost eight bucks for ten hangars, or seven dollars and fifty cents, and everything will get more expensive, which will be inflationary. The moderator the edit entry food, Bloomberg said, tariffs have another side. You could be plunging America into the biggest trade war. Trump says, no, all you have to do is build the plant in the United States and then you don't have any tariffs.
Huh. Those immigrants that are going to leave.
I want to play his answer on government spending.
That's tremendous. Will give me an example of something you will do that will get rid of governments.
But let me give you an example.
When I came into government, I was the first example coming forward. This is going forward because it's the same thing. When I first sat down, a general came into my office and he said, sir, it's nice to meet you. When you please sign this.
I said, what is it.
It's a contract for a new air force one which is actually two planes, not one two Boeing seven forty seven. And I said, how much is it? Five point seven billion dollars. It's the hell of an expensive plane. But there's reasons for that. He said, nope, I'm not signing it. I said, who negotiated BARACKU, Sai and Obama. I said, I'm not signing it. Why because he because there's a lot of fat. He said, I'm not signing. It's got
to have it three on it. Anyway, long story short, some of you have heard this.
I got it down.
Too, because first week they cut off four hundred million, he said, I'll cut I met with the head of Boeing. Wait, Dennis, I said, Dennis got to have a three. Five point seven is too much? Five point seven billion? He said, the most I'll take off is four hundred million dollars. I said, well, let's not bad for one conversation. So I got it down. I said, nope, I'm not accepting. Then he took off two more. Then he took off anyway. Two months went by, three months went by. I thought
we blew the deal. And I was okay with me. I didn't care. But we should have a new are force one when we see these planes from Saudi Arabia, from different countries brand new, and ours is like thirty two years old, and it's a very different plane. It's much smaller plane. Yeah, the whole thing. The United States should have.
The best plane, something real same well.
And also like, so he's going to lessen government spending by trying to cheat his vendors, right, I mean, that's that is I'm not sure that's a scalable answer. The thing that I was the most upset by was that Trump wants to influence the FED moves. So remember one of the things that Project twenty twenty five wants to do is to make the FED, the DOJ, many aspects of the sort of the non partisan actors in the federal government to be partisan hacks arm of the Donald
Trump campaign. And that's what's happening here. Trump says he wants to influence FED move and then he sort of said he wouldn't order them, but he definitely thinks he's smarter than the chairman of the FED who he actually installed, Jerome Palell. And he says, in fact, look, I think it's the greatest job in government. You show up to the office once a month and say, let's flip a coin, and everyone talks about you like you're a god. He added,
I think I'm better than he would be. I think I'm better than most people would be in the position. By the way, somebody give me this kind of self esteem because I never think, oh my god, I'm better than this person. I mean, like, oh, to be a mediocre white guy. I don't think I should be allowed to order it. Oh, okay, well that's nice. But I think I have the right to put in comments as to whether or not interest rate should go up or down. By the way, all he wants is for them to
go down. He also refused to answer whether or not Google should be broken up. Again. He basically just meandered and talked about something else. And then when Mikaelwithe asked him, can you say yes or no? Have you talked to Vladimir Putin since being president? Trump was like, no, but if I had, it would have been great, which is he didn't say no. He said I won't comment on that, and he said, but I will tell you that if I did, it's a smart thing. So there you go.
If he did, it's a smart thing. What do you want to bet he did.
I'm not betting against that.
So that's Trump at the Economic Club of Chicago. Though at least he did talk and not just sway to the wind, and for that we should all be impressed that he at least tried to answer some questions. Get here is a contributor to the nation and the host of the time of Monsters. Welcome Back, Too Fast Politics.
Jed here always good to be on the program.
So I am so glad to have you on this podcast, and I have so many things I want to talk to you about, the first of which is Donald Trump's little dance thirty seven minutes of bopping' and Weavin.
I wanted the woke to use liberals, Wade, I mean, you're complaining he gives like two hours of advocating fascism and the mass deportations and spreading horrific conspiracy theories that could get people killed, and then he gives you something different where he's just swaying gently to like, you know, the village people. Yeah, abra ave Maria, yeah, exactly. Why not celebrate the fact that this is the most benign Donald Trump we've ever seen. Why not have a president who's a swaying tree.
A swaying tree, well.
Moves to the wind. This is like him and his best i've ever seen. I have followed this guy since the nineteen eighties. I've never seen such a benign you know, just sort of smile like Grandpa after you've given him a lot of worphying.
So I'm going to give you listeners of full context. Here. Donald Trump was in South Dakota being interviewed by South Dakota Governor Christy Nome, who is most famous for killing her puppy. And again, the Washington Post just absolutely got it right here. They said Trump sways and bops to music for thirty nine minutes in bizarre town hall episode. The scene comes as Vice President Kamala Harris has called Trump seventy eight unstable and called into question his mental acuity.
Yeah, aget, I want to set up for Donald Trump here. Well, you wanted to be talking to Christy Nole and like, well, what about like the best way to kill domestic pets? No, right, the suthlist was good. It's the Trump favorites. I'm always in favor of bringing.
Oh, the town hall was in Pennsylvania. I'm sorry the town hall was in Pennsylvania, but it was with South Dakota Governor Christine. Thank you Seamus for that fact check.
Yeah yeah, So again I have to say, what more do you people want? I believe that you know they were because of the sort of heat waves. I think that there were some people in the audience who had.
Two different passed out.
Yeah exactly. Trump showing the leadership and command that you want with someone who's gonna might have his finger on the nuclear button, said the best thing to do right now not get overheated with political rhetoric, but like if we all slay gently, we can create a wind that will help the people in the audience revive. I have to say, a masterful performance from the former president.
Yeah exactly. I want to just square the circle here. He's seventy eight years old. He's the oldest person to ever run for president. He makes Reagan. I mean Reagan was like almost a decade younger when he ran, and until July, he was running against someone who was older than him, President Biden. And he made his whole case against President Biden was that President Biden was too old and too doddering.
And he sees an opportunity there. You had a campaign that was all about Joe Biden being too old and you know, raising these important issues about age, and then once Biden, like you know, did a huge disservice to the country by withdrawing in the Trump's no, no, no. We have to make these issues key to the political campaign. And I will take the role that Joe Biden had.
I will even go far beyond anything Joe Biden never did in terms of flaking out, not just at this event, but at other events, somehow pronouncing words in the strangest possible ways, meandering and re associating, which my friend's English professors will tell me is a form of post Wadern discourse called the weave. Yes, the weave and you know like which too much of the public is a good public service on the issue of Yes. In an aging society, you want to be seeing the doctor. You want to
be getting those cognitive tasks. I say, he's doing us all a favor.
Yes, exactly, he's doing He's reminding us about what it is that the stakes are. The other thing I want to talk to you about is so Trump has this closing message, and it's like authoritarianism. For example, I want to talk about Aurora. So when Aurora, he said, I'm going to invoke this act that's a wartime act. It's called it's a law from the seventeen hundreds. It's the Alien Enemies Act of seventeen ninety eight. It gives the president power to detain or deport foreign enemy as could
be broadly applied to target any non citizens. By the way, that's me, not you, because you live in Canada whereas we'll soon live. I'm kidding. I will never leave this country unless I'm deported, which could be possible. He did this at Aurora. I feel like this should be the only story.
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely no. I think Trump and his people are basic betting that you know, they can win this election on anti immigration shysteria, and also being willing to do far more than any government has in decades. I mean, there are, you know, in Kenaian American history examples of pretty horrific anti immigrant action, but I mean Trump wants
to revive that. I think the act that he wants to revive was pretty specifically one of the foundation stones for the interrement of Japanese Americans is basically an attack on the idea of citizenship has come to be in America, especially after the Civil War, the idea of sort of birthright citizenship, and the idea that you know, like a naturalized citizen, someone who's an immigrant gives a citizen, is a citizen, and you know, like trying to create a
class of provisional citizens, your citizens. You know, as long as you make Trump happy, and if he doesn't like you, doesn't like the color of your skin or just what you right, and will unleash the full force of the military and police against it. Yeah, I think that. I mean, there's a couple of interesting things. Is one of which is, you know, you know, don't hear about inflation that much anymore, you don't hear. But like a lot of other issues,
this is the one issue. And you know, one could argue that this has always been the core of trump Ism, you know, going back to coming down the elevator and talking about Mexican rapists. But this is what it has come down to. And you know the issue is, you know, are there enough Americans who will blame immigrants and CEO and think that there's enough of a trouble with immigrants
that they're willing to suspend the Constitution. I'm cautiously hopeful that there aren't enough Americans, but it's much closer than it should be.
We have no idea. Yeah. During this town hall, which is pretty wacky, was on October fourteenth, he told his supporters to go out and vote. On January fifth, he talked about the late great Hannibal Lecter, who you and I know is not real. He acted confused when asked if they should end the event and play a walk off song, and then he stood frozen and silent on stage as music played for thirty plus minutes.
Yeah, I know, I mean, I having the whole music. I mean it is a very I mean I would encourage listeners to, like just to watch some of the clips around. It's very bizarre because you could tell that the people around him are like kind of puzzled, like, well, why is he doing this? What's exactly going on? And it is you know, I mean, people use a very sundowning, but I think that this is something that's maybe even
a little bit of more extreme. And you can just see this in Trump's rhetoric, right, you know, tought would it just be giving a meandering speech and occasion you mentioned, you know, like, well, you know what if I just went to the beach and like, you know, just relax there, or you know, like sometimes I just want to get in a truck and just like drive. And I think that the technical term in psychology is, if not quite suicidal ideation, maybe end bass ideation. Trump is kind of
trying to imagine the end is near. How am I going to finish it off? How am I going to get in a good position to see the white light.
The other thing I'm struck by is like one of the things that we have so removed ourselves from because we've been living in this election cycle for what feels like one hundred years, is that Donald Trump is still running for president in order to avoid all of his criminal charges.
Yeah, well no, I mean that's the only reason he's running for president. I kind of feel at this point there's something a little bit different. I do kind of feel if people always said a line, well, it's like the producers. He doesn't really want it, but.
He wants to win. I think because he doesn't want to go to jail.
I think that's wrong. But he wants to win. But he wants this time more than even in the past. He wants to win for like purely utilitary and self interested reasons, and I'm not sure his heart is in it, and so he kind of I mean in terms of what I'm talking about, like these kind of like meandering speeches. This is something a little bit different than before. Like I think he's thinking about the end of his life, the end of the road, much more than he ever has.
We're all thinking about that our own lives. I mean, it's been a decade of covering this guy, and we're all very tired.
Yeah, well he's tired. He's tired too, Like he can't even pretend anymore to care. And it's like he's like decided, like you know, like no, I don't want to take questions. I don't want to talk to this South the Quota bulhunt for this audience of Pennsylvania hillbillies. I just want to like, you know, sway in the wind and listen to the Maria. Yeah, listen to my music, you know, put on a few show tunes.
He just loves show tunes.
Yeah. I think, you know, like if you could somehow arrange the scenario where he gets to, you know, sit on the beach and listen to Andrew Lloyd Weber until the white Light comes to get him.
So let's just talk about last week. I saw the Apprentice movie, which Trump is very angry about. He truth quote unquote truth about it.
Well, he gave the best possible review because I actually think I know the movie is doing, but I actually think that this will help the movie quite a bit.
Yeah, and I watched the movie, and you know, I grew up in this city, My parents grew up in this city. The you know, my grandfather knew Roy Cone because Roy Cone was involved in the House on American Activities and putting my grandfather in jail for his political beliefs.
Oh yeah, he was like McCarthy's like second of command.
Yeah, as I'm watching this movie, and you know, one of the things about this movie is Jeremy Strong from Succession is like an incredible does an incredible character study of Roy Cohne and Roy Cone is probably one of the most interesting and evil characters in American political life.
And he touched on all of these things. But also you had in this movie Roger Stone and it just was a very it struck me as it reminded me again There's questions about whether or not how much of how successful Roy Cone was in making Donald Trump, crafting Donald Trump into his image, or if Donald Trump was always like that, but it was still I thought quite interesting.
Oh yeah, I know, I know, actually do think that Roy Cone is one of the expealitions of who Donald Trump is. Not to say that, you know, he took this young, unison, decent man and corrupted him. Yeah, Rather, I mean Trump already had a rotten in his soul, but I mean Roy Cohne was the figure who out
in the ropes. And the thing is, people forget this but Roy Cone, because Roy conn is such a villain, you know, was so involved with McCarthyism, was a corrupt lawyer who like basically owned a lot of judges that was disbarred, and was a self hating gay man who you know, like such a vicious figure. But he was
also a power in the land. I mean Roy Cohn in the sort of seventies and eighties, you know, like at any top New York party would be hanging out, and he would hang out with people from the liberal media because he could do people favors, right, like Barbara Walters, you know, bless her soul was very close to Roy Cone, and so Roy Cone knew that particular New York power structure which is all about so her favors and but
also getting the dirt like he was able. He's only he's like a terrible lawyer in terms of knowing the law, but he knew the dirt on all the judges and he knew how to blackmail them, right, And so I think absolutely, I don't think you can make sense of Donald from without how to say interestingly enough, I mean he said, you know, thumbs down from Donald Trump for the movie. But rogers Stold actually gave me a good recommendation where he said, you know, I knew Roy Cohen and you know this movie.
It really does seem like Roy Kahn.
Oh yeah, yeah, No, no, no, I mean no, And it's I mean, I think that the movie captures, uh, you know, like an important part of the story which I think people outside of New York in particular weren't understand. There is that New York world. The late novelist Sidney's Ion described it.
Which is called sid giont.
Yes, Sid which is all about like Markers, It's all about favors, it's all about the back room deals that you can do, and that's you know, that's a big part of Trump's path to power in terms of show business, but also the relationship with the National A Choir. And then also you know, like the basic roy Cone code, which is like you never apologize, never forgive, you always on the attack, you know. I mean that is the
Trump methodology. So I don't know how much time you want to do like sort of psychologue, but I mean that's Trump at his peak. You know, the movie is the young Trump learning his ropes, but like, you know, what we saw over the weekend was, you know, this is the end of the road for the guy, cautiously opul He doesn't win.
But I do think the point of like this world being just sort of a by gone world that he is sort of the last vestiges of is pretty interesting. I want you to sort of talk about how Harris can win this thing.
Okay, the race is a lot tighter than it is, but I don't want to do too much backseat driving because I think, right, they've actually been doing a lot of the right things.
Yeah that's what I think too.
Yeah, I'm a super fan of like touting the Chinese or Alberta Gonzalez as much.
As they have ignore should you be that's not for you.
Yeah, it's not for me. But also I'm not sure, like if I'm actually like looking at the numbers, you know, it seems like there's still she's a little bit lagging still with young people, people of color, and sort of white working cost So like I actually think, like you know, like I think a traditional Democratic campaign of the type that Joe Biden you know, ran in twenty twenty and Obama around in twenty twelve are the way to go, Like you know, do the union halls spend just a
lot of time in those Midwestern states, just shore up those I mean, this is a little bit of good news, which is, you know, you look at the early numbers in Pennsylvania and in Michigan especially like you know, like Detroit and Flint are like you know, forty percent return rate much higher than the rest of the state. So yeah, I mean, like if I think, like locking down the urban vote, which is like people of color, black voters, young voters, I think that puts you over the top.
And I think, like for me, that's what I would concentrate on. I know that they also have hopes of you know, expending in the suburbs of Philadelphia with this never Trump stuff. But yeah, I'm looking at them. I think there's just a lot more you know, votes from the base than there is, like any more juice to be squeezed out of that never Trump.
The big question is can you get the nikky Haley voters without alienating the people that you need your base, that you need to juice. And I think that is the tension that you're explaining, right.
Yeah, I know that is the tension. I mean's partially. I mean, I'm not so much worried about alien because I think the people who the Democratic base understands a problem with Trump. I mean, I just I just think there in terms of juicing up the numbers of getting people out there, you know, even though it's country but Obama, I thought, you know, having Obama out there is good. I just think that you have to That's where I
would concentrate the energy. And I think, you know, the one the way to unify this very fragmented coalition is remind people about Trump, which I think that they're doing more of. I think that the closing message is about the dangers of Trump and.
The good news is Trump is reminding people of Trump absolutely absolutely.
I know Trump is in different ways, both in terms of the scary Trump who's like calling for basically a race war against immogrants, and the more benign grandfather Trump, who's kind of like swaying to music and is like you're wonder You're like, well, you know, it's this actually going to be president. I mean, I think both of those things, because I mean the other aspect is Vance,
who they decided. I mean, I think I thought it was a mistake to like go benign on Vance and the vice president because like, if it's Trump, Trump is scary, and they did a good job early of like Vance is weird.
But Advance is really scary too, though.
Yeah yeah, and it won't be I mean, the thing is, if you have a sundowning Trump as president, it will be Advance and all these guls from the Aratis Foundation. So so I actually think, like, yeah, like just reminding people of all the Project twenty twenty five, how you know, like weird and freaky Advances and how deal like unstable Trump is both in his own authoritarian stakes and also he's like sundowning before our very eyes.
And also one last thing is that I really think that what I saw when I was watching that debate, the ad vice presidential debate, was that if fascism comes to this country, maybe we escape at this time. But it did feel like if it comes, it comes wrapped up in a Harvard Degrae telling you that they're going to fix Obamacare or not that they're going to end it. Yeah.
No, absolutely absolutely. I mean I think that these that sort of slick, sleep ivy league of authoritarianism is always the end game here with the federalist society authoritarianism. But those guys can never went on their own. They needed you know, Trump's genuine popular touch and ability to reach people.
I think actually in that sense, like the additional anti advancing that they did was very important and was very effective, and I'm a little bit disappointed that they've you know, backed away from that, and that is the true price of this kind of you know, attempt to get the never trumpet. They decide to go easy on Vans and
the vice presidential debate. You know, you said, the election's gone on forever, but like if we're living in France or England or Canada, you know, three weeks is the election like it's it's the three weeks, the last three weeks where you really make the sprint and make the case, and that's when people have to pay attention. So I don't actually think it's too late for the Harris campaign to do any of the stuff I talked about.
Thank you, thank you, Thank you.
Read here always great to talking news.
Are you concerned about Project twenty twenty five and how awful Trump's second term could be? Well so are we, which is why we teamed up with iHeart to make a limited series with the experts on what a disaster Project twenty twenty five would be for America's future. Right now, we have just released the final episode of this five
episode series. They're all about by looking up Molly john Fast Project twenty twenty five on YouTube, and if you are more of a podcast person and not say a YouTuber, you can hit play and put your phone in the lock screen and it will play back just like a podcast. All five episodes are online now. We need to educate Americans on what Trump's second term would or could do to this country, so please watch it and spread the word.
Jonathan Alter is the author of the substack Old Goats and his latest book is called American Reckoning, Inside Trump's Trial and My Own. Welcome to Fast Politics, Jonathan Alter.
How are you, Mollie.
Great to have you so, Jonathan, you are a legend. You are longtime just journalist who's done everything written and everywhere, has been covering this White House, covering the trial, and now you have a new book I do.
It's called American Reckoning, Inside Trump's Trial and My Own. So basically, Molly, as you say, I've been covering politics for a really long time. This is my twelfth presidential campaign, and I interviewed nine American presidents. But I started either before, during, or after their presidencies. But I started having a kind of a crisis of faith in the common sense of the half of the American public.
And so I think when.
I say my trial, what I mean is the trial the ordeal that so many of us have gone through with this wicked man, Donald Trump, and he's shaken some of my faith. So this is sort of how I came to this idea of covering the trial. And I was in the courtroom in Manhattan all twenty three days. I was one of the only reporters who was there for the duration of the trial, and I saw this man from just a few feet away, you know, basically
all the time. You know, sometimes when I'd be sitting on the aisle, you know, he'd walk past me in and out of court, I'd be like three inches from him, over and over and over again. Over the course of his trial, I witnessed what I think has to be considered one of the most dramatic moments of the twenty first century, where a majority or person said guilty, guilty, guilty, thirty four times. And this was the first ever trial
of the American President. And I wanted to be there and see it and bear witness to it for very personal reasons that I explained in the book.
So tell us some of those personal reasons.
Well, in twenty twenty three, I had this dream of about my late father, and the dream was something about my dad, cigarettes, vodka, and a gun. And I couldn't really figure out what it was. And then I kind of puzzled through why was I dreaming about Dad's cigarettes, vodka, and a gun. And the reason was that he had told me a story. Died about ten years ago when he was shot down over Hungary during World War Two.
He was a navigator Bombedier on be twenty four, and he was under orders to use his revolver to destroy the Norden bomb site. Vombiteer it's used didn't work very well. It was a primitive computer and it didn't work in the cloud, so it didn't really help my dad very
much dropping bombs. But those were his orders. So when they were shot down and made emergency landing, emptied his revolver, his gun into the device, came out with his hands up, and it turned out they were Russian Soviets, and they spent the night at where they were shot down drinking vodka with Soviets. They traded their disabled aircraft for partns of cigarettes and safe passage back in your base. So
that's what the dream was about. But it got me thinking about my father leaving Purdue University in nineteen forty two, right after Pearl Harbor and enlisting and going to fight for democracy. He goes away for more than three years from home to fight for an idea for democracy, and
you know who else did that? Molly. George H. W. Bush was the youngest pilot in the Navy, enlisted on his eighteenth birthday, and when I was covering is a nineteen eighty eight campaign, and there were a lot of descriptions of his being shot down in the Pacific, and at the time he said was asked, what were you thinking about? And he said, I was thinking about Barbara and where my next meal would come from, whether I'd be rescued, which he was by submarine, and I was
thinking about the separation church in State. And we all snickered at that, And I'm actually ashamed of having snickered at that, because he really was going to fight for the Constitution and for democracy. And so I said to myself, Okay, your father went and risked his life for democracy. What are you going to do to defend democracy?
What will you do?
How can you use your gills? Everybody has a different role to play. You know, if you're a lawyer, you needed to go to a battleground state and make sure that you're there to you know, as a poll watcher or troubleshooter, to make sure that Republicans are not preventing people from voting. You know, if you're wealthier, you need to give money. Everybody's got something that they can do. And so I was sort of thinking, well, what can I do I don't have to risk my life to
do it like Dad. And that then took me back to an interview that I did with Richard Nixon. So in nineteen eighty eight, I wanted to meet Nixon for a quote. So I made arrangements for him to come to new where I was then working in covering politics and writing a column for twenty years, and Nixon came in the fall of nineteen eighty eight. I asked him, how will history remember Ronald Reagan? And he said, well, you have to distinguish the great history and the historians, because.
The historians are like you. They're liberal.
It's you're a conservative, you go into business. If you're a liberal, you write history or journalists. And in thinking back on this, I realized that this man who had been hate watching little boy Nixon had seeing me, had my number. The only thing I bring is bearing witness, using whatever I can do as a journalist to bear witness and make a contribution that way. So that's a very long winded explanation for why I wanted to cover
the trial. And first I tried to cover the you know what I call the coup trial and Washington and Jack Smith case, and then that, of course, was delayed by the immunity question after I had been credentialed for it. I got credentialed for Belanie trial in Manhattan through the Washington Pumply magazine many years ago instarted writing articles for the New York Times opinion section.
Was there I'm hoping you could explain to our listeners, for example, in some ways, Trump is his own thing, right, his own singular threat to American democracy that is in itself unlike anything we've ever seen. That said, in some ways, I mean, you can listen to Trump's speeches, not now because he's so diminished, but in twenty sixteen, and you could get two or three minutes where if you close your eyes, you'd hear Richard Nixon right, and even with
Reagan right, make America great again. You know, the aspects of performative politics, the belief in really in nothing, a sort of nihilistic quest for power. What do you you think, as someone who has covered politics for such a long time, distinguishes Trump and Trumps from say, Newt Gandridge trying to burn down the entire Congress.
Well, just to talk about Nixon for a second. So there are some very clear comparisons. When I was in the courtroom, you know, I realized that Watergate, a lot of it was about finding hush money, right and paying off the Watergate burglars with hush money, and Nixon approved that cover up.
And you know the hush.
Money, well, Prump was basically the same thing. It was Trump covering up Michael Phone's hush money view. So you know, there are comparisons like that, and in some ways there were elements of Watergate that were significantly worse. But Nixon, even though he liked Trump, believed that politics was essentially the mobilization of resentments. Nixon, you know, had his own grievances that he nursed that were in some ways similar to Trump's. And Nixon arguably committed more war crimes than
so wise he was worse. But when Nixon would play the Wraith card, for instance, with his Southern strategy, he and other politicians of the early sixties and seventies, they used code words or dog whistles. Nixon's famous code word in nineteen sixty eight was law and order. There's a big difference between law and order. And they're eating dogs and pets. You know, the Haitians are coming to get
you right. So Trump's racism is much much more raw, vicious, and dangerous than anything that ever came out of Richard Nixon's or George Wallace. Many Trump supporters are the either elderly former Wallace supporders or the children of Walason. Wallace ran twice with President nineteen sixty eight since them too, and he didn't get as far as Trump, so you know,
he never was in serious danger of becoming president. So we're actually a lot worse off in terms of a racist demmagou now than we were at the height of George Wallace. Right, So this is worse. And you talked about these other you know, Nixon and Reagan.
Not nude gangrage, weaponizing the federal government against itself. But I get where you're going with this. I want you to sort of explain though, a little bit about you were supposed to cover the Jack Smith trial. That trial did not happen because of MAGA. Judge threw it out, right, which is like pretty egregious that nothing happened. Then she just threw it out and that was it.
Maybe someday that was not the trial that I was potential to cover. That's the word to try with Eileen Cannon, and she's a Trump lackey who threw that out. But if Harris win, Jack Smith can go back and do what he did in the Washington what I call the coup trial, the big trial for trying to govern in the documents case, he can go back and you know, reindict Trump. If Harris wins. If Harris doesn't win, all
these cases all go away, all of them. By the way, I thought at the time I wrote the book that the Georgia and New York cases could possibly survive. But I've been told by lawyers who would be wise to
getting rid of them to jump wins. But so they can bring up the monologal documents another way, they can Reindicke and so this is not an end of the And tim shut in Washington was the big rial of some trying to overcurrent the election that you know Jack Smith is making progress on, and they carved out a very compelling argument that would get past the Supreme Court
decision on immunity for official Act. And they are basically going to argue next year if wins the election, and they have a trial, which in all likelihood is Larry tribesays in all likelihood there will be this mother of all constitutional trials next year if Harris wins, because they've been able to establish in their arguments that I think even the Supreme Court will likely recognize that Trump was acting as a candidate when he was telling Brad Rathensberger,
you know, I need eleven thousand, seven hundred rods. He wasn't acting in his official capacity as president. So that's what Supreme Court said. They drew this distinction official and unofficial, and going to be very hard for Trump to argue
that his actions as a candidate were official. It will mean that some of his conversations with lawyers who worked in the White House will be carved out of this case, in the same way that Hope Hicks his testimony from when she was communication director, who was very incriminating testimony, will be carved out of Trump's felony conviction in New York. But there's enough other evidence that he will go down anyway, and I believe that it will be held uphelding Yal, I mean.
Aren't you sort of horrified at the miscarriage of justice here, Like, here's a guy who literally tried to overturn the election, and he has managed to punt or get rid of all of his cases, and now he is running for president just like a normal candidate. I mean, doesn't that strike you as like an incredible failing on the part of the justice system.
Yes, broadly speaking, I deal with a lot in American reckoning, and because when I say, you know, inside Trump's trial, in my own my own reckoning is with having some of my illusions about the American people, uh and the justice system shaken. So I used to like to identify myself as JFK called himself an idealist without illusions, and I realized they had more illusions, maybe than I thought. I think a lot of other people feel the same way. But when you say that he got away with it,
he did not. In the felony case, He's going to this election as a convicted felon and he's awaiting sentencing. On November twenty sixth, and for reasons that related to the immunity decision, Judge Wan Mshan delayed sentencing, but he
didn't eliminate sentencing. He will be sentenced, and I think there's a decent chance that he will be sentenced to short jail time in a country club jail at the end of November, so you know, he won't start serving that sentence until his appeals are exhausted, but he will be sentenced. So the idea that the criminal justice system,
you know, completely failed, I don't think is accurate. And we saw basic accountability on May thirtieth when that Jerry Ford person said guilty thirty four times, and this was a very gratifying moment. It should be seen as a gratifying moment, and I think it is very much part of the subtext of this campaign or even the text
of it. So as the Hutchinson, the former Republican governor of Arkansas, that he cannot vote for Donald Trump because he's the convicted fela and tom La Harris as the prosecutor, has framed this election in part as prosecutor versus perp and that's one of the reasons she's doing well, is that he is a convicted felon. That very much helps the Aras campaign.
Do you have something you want to tell us about in the book that is sort of new that you're excited about.
Yeah, there's a lot that's new in the book about what happened inside that surreal courtroom where the trial wasn't televised, so people who were not there got only a tiny bit of just the barest headlines of what it was actually like inside the courtroom. So there's a lot of
new stuff about that. But then I also have a section called black Swan Summer, which is about how Nancy Pelosi maneuvered Joe Biden off the ticket, and as she said, she will go to her grave without describing exactly what she and Biden talked about, but I got the outlines of it and more about it than anybody has so far,
including Bob Woodward with his Tony Blinken story. So basically what happened was that after the June twenty seventh debate, at first Alosi thought it was survivable, as she said publicly, but then she started seeing polls from House members and their race as House members who were expected to win, and they were in deep trouble. And what she really cares about is the House, right, She's an institutional, So she made a secret visit to the White House to
see her friend of forty years, Joe Biden. Not on any log the existence of the trip, I revealed for the first time. She did not show him any of those polls. She did not say, Joe, it's time to go. She said, I'm here for you, Joe, hear for you. I know this is a difficult time. Let's talk. Let's talk. And then that led to a series of conversations on the telephone, the upshot of which was, as somebody very close to Pelosi told me, she can cut off your
head and you won't even know it. And what she did was she began the process of getting him to think about it, and then she pressured him on Morning Joe on July tenth, which when she said that he hadn't made a decision yet, when he actually had made a decision, which was strong. That then ignored everybody else in the Democratic Party that they could start pressuring him,
the donors and everybody else. But she was annoyed at that moment, even resentful of the men, meaning Clinton, Obama, Jeffreys, Schumer, and she thought the men were quote m Ia, and she wondered, why are my the only blow by fingerprints on the knife.
This is pretty.
Dramatic stuff that she pulled off, this feat, this brilliant, brilliant political feat, until she was joined a week later by the men who eventually got in gear and showed Biden the bad polling. Initially she had to launch this
historic effort to get him off the ticket. And then I also learned from somebody very close to Biden that COVID was the last straw, that without COVID, he probably would have toughed it out, run out the clock, and he would be the nominee right now, head a certain defeat when he got COVID and he saw that split screen of Trump and him getting off the airplane coughing, and he realized that he had to seriously consider whether it's step down from the ticket.
Jonathan, this is so incredibly important and fascinating. We will all be just digging in this book. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank.
You, thanks much for having me. Malia, no moment.
Cofecly Jesse Kennon Maley Jung fasts. So I'm going to shock you here. Seems like the right wing was trying to smear to Wall. So it's a day ending and why what do you see here?
So they had this account which was more recent was recently known as the ABC quote unquote whistleblower Hoaxter. So a far right account on acts, the one that had the handle is called doc net YouTube, which sounds very, very very legit had a lengthy post over the weekend that they had received information that Walls had an inappropriate relationship with the minor. This account had previously blown up for its claims that ABC had a whistleblower proving that
President Vice President Harris had gotten the questions before the debate. Well, the proof never materialized. Numerous politicians, including MTG Donald Trump, jumped on the story. So I'm gonna go with that this is not true, And in fact, we know it's not true because, as noted by numerous users, the dates at the top of the email are inconsistent. Well, some
correctly feature commas, others didn't, indicating that the emails are fabricated. Ironically, another popular account known as Agent Self FBI first identified the user errors. So it's just a completely silly made up thing. An anonymous X account made it up. But you know X is now a place for fake news, and the right runs with fake news whether or not. It's trail.
That sounds about right.
Yeah, So that in itself is our moment of fuckery. Doctor net YouTube on X and X's crazy miss Him from Flooding is our moment of fuckery. That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Saturday to hear the best minds in politics make sense of all the chaos. If you enjoyed this podcast, please send it to a friend or an enemy and keep the conversation going